whitmc's review against another edition
5.0
Another road trip snag, this time from Auntie's books in Spokane, Washington. Picked for title and cover (my cover is bright yellow and neon pink) because people in Spokane sure do love their guns, so at the very least, it would remind me of Spokane.
Great book. The writing alone was just really fun to read, and then add the story, the characters, and then the ending. I want more though, so please Jennifer Clement, write a 10 years later book!
Great book. The writing alone was just really fun to read, and then add the story, the characters, and then the ending. I want more though, so please Jennifer Clement, write a 10 years later book!
liz_not_bennet's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
What was the point?
Part One was interesting to me, at least until Eli arrived. The people living in the trailer park felt vivid and it was easy to imagine the surroundings.
I would have loved to read more about their day-to-day life but then Eli had to show up and also I wasn't a fan of the writing style.
Part One was interesting to me, at least until Eli arrived. The people living in the trailer park felt vivid and it was easy to imagine the surroundings.
I would have loved to read more about their day-to-day life but then Eli had to show up and also I wasn't a fan of the writing style.
alicerondinella's review against another edition
4.0
Non mi ha convinta al 100% e non so dire bene perché, ma a distanza di mesi continuo a pensare alla protagonista, quindi in fondo mi ha lasciato un qualcosa. Non è un brutto romanzo…
marshamudpuddle's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
sad
5.0
I was blown away by this novel, with its fully-realised and unique vision. It darkens like a bruise and flickers with life like a broken neon sign. The story of Pearl, a child who lives with her mother in a parked car in a Florida trailer park, enraptured me as it moved through its three perfectly-weighted acts: a long first act (more than half the book's length) set at the trailer park, gradually getting to know its various, fascinating, eccentric characters, whose lives are all shaped by the perennial presence of guns, culminating in the more-or-less-random murder of Pearl's mother; a devastatingly sad second act, where Pearl is whisked off to a foster home for 'shoots', children whose parents have died from gun violence, run by the patient and kind My Brodsky; and a third act where Corazon, the wife of a Mexican gun smuggler who lived with Pearl in the park, comes to 'rescue' her and take her to Mexico, leading to a climax where Pearl shoots Eli (her mother's creepy lover) in a moment of quasi-revenge, and a denouement where she hides among bags of stolen guns in (once again) the back of a car, heading south of the border. The events might be recast as a thriller, but they unfold instead with a metaphorical inevitability: the New Yorker called this a 'poetics of gun violence' and the phrase rings true, with all the contradictory horror it implies. The prose is filled with tiny, glittering, surprising sentences. It's also a great evocation of Florida, to rival Karen Russell's (also brilliant) Swamplandia. Big double thumbs up for this one.
amandaflinck's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
3.5
📖 Hört mycket bra om både den här och författarens andra böcker. Kanske för mycket - jag tror att mina förväntningar var lite väl högt uppskruvade.
Pearl bor med sin mamma i en bil i ett trailerområde i Florida. De är grannar med en soptipp, en flod full med alligatorer och med andra människor som lever i samhällets utkant. Men Pearl och hennes mamma har en stark relation och det går att anpassa sig till nästan vilket liv som helst, också det här. Men allt förändras när Eli Remond dyker upp och de redan många vapnen blir allt fler.
Boken är skriven på vacker prosa som för mig ibland blir lite väl pretantiös, med många liknelser och metaforer. Karaktärerna, särskilt Pearl och hennes mamma, känns ibland mer som konstverk än som personer, och det gör dem svåra att relatera till.
Jag gillar dock utforskandet av hemlöshet, överlevnad och vapeninnehav i USA genom dels Pearls blick, dels det okonventionella språket - det hade varit outsägligt trist om den var socialrealistiskt skriven! Det finns fina partier i boken men den bryter aldrig riktigt igenom.
Kort sagt en läsvärd roman men inte den käftsmäll jag hoppades på. 🚙 🇺🇸 🐊
#gunlove #jenniferclement #amandaläser #bokrecension
Pearl bor med sin mamma i en bil i ett trailerområde i Florida. De är grannar med en soptipp, en flod full med alligatorer och med andra människor som lever i samhällets utkant. Men Pearl och hennes mamma har en stark relation och det går att anpassa sig till nästan vilket liv som helst, också det här. Men allt förändras när Eli Remond dyker upp och de redan många vapnen blir allt fler.
Boken är skriven på vacker prosa som för mig ibland blir lite väl pretantiös, med många liknelser och metaforer. Karaktärerna, särskilt Pearl och hennes mamma, känns ibland mer som konstverk än som personer, och det gör dem svåra att relatera till.
Jag gillar dock utforskandet av hemlöshet, överlevnad och vapeninnehav i USA genom dels Pearls blick, dels det okonventionella språket - det hade varit outsägligt trist om den var socialrealistiskt skriven! Det finns fina partier i boken men den bryter aldrig riktigt igenom.
Kort sagt en läsvärd roman men inte den käftsmäll jag hoppades på. 🚙 🇺🇸 🐊
#gunlove #jenniferclement #amandaläser #bokrecension
elundh's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
donnerbella's review against another edition
4.0
blood dripping, metal tasting poetry from the outside of society.
avalinda's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
sjj169's review against another edition
4.0
Pearl has grown up living in a car that is parked at the beginning of a middle of nowhere Florida trailer park. She doesn't know much of anything about her mother's past life other than the fact that she knows her mom came from money..(and fly swatters and the gas stove) and that no one knows that Pearl exists. She has no birth certificate as her mom had her and ran. That keeps the child protection services away. Or so she hopes.
Pearl and her mom have lived in that car Pearl's whole life. They have made it and the trailer park their home. They take showers at the community restroom and eat things that don't need refrigeration. They have neighbors that look out after them.
You don't want to miss these characters...a mentally challenged woman with her Barbie dolls, a traumatized Vet, an Hispanic couple and the preacher. *yes please*
Pearl even has a best friend that she steals cigarettes for and they go to the dump and look for dead animals. Good times.
Then Eli comes to the trailer park.
Pearl's mother becomes a different type of woman with Eli and starts making Pearl leave the car when he is around and stops going to work.
This frigging author can write her butt off. I swear I actually tasted the Raid spray that Pearl's mother would spray down the car with nightly. She brings all these characters to life in your head and then when the bad stuff goes on..and you sorta knew bad stuff couldn't help but happen...you saw it through Pearl's voice and eyes. It sorta dimmed down the bad but in a way that still socked me over the head. I've not read anything quite like that experience. I would have given this the full five stars except for a few things...and I have been hating every dang book I read lately. So that's saying something. (Probably something stupid...but still)
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.
Pearl and her mom have lived in that car Pearl's whole life. They have made it and the trailer park their home. They take showers at the community restroom and eat things that don't need refrigeration. They have neighbors that look out after them.
You don't want to miss these characters...a mentally challenged woman with her Barbie dolls, a traumatized Vet, an Hispanic couple and the preacher. *yes please*
Pearl even has a best friend that she steals cigarettes for and they go to the dump and look for dead animals. Good times.
Then Eli comes to the trailer park.
Pearl's mother becomes a different type of woman with Eli and starts making Pearl leave the car when he is around and stops going to work.
This frigging author can write her butt off. I swear I actually tasted the Raid spray that Pearl's mother would spray down the car with nightly. She brings all these characters to life in your head and then when the bad stuff goes on..and you sorta knew bad stuff couldn't help but happen...you saw it through Pearl's voice and eyes. It sorta dimmed down the bad but in a way that still socked me over the head. I've not read anything quite like that experience. I would have given this the full five stars except for a few things...and I have been hating every dang book I read lately. So that's saying something. (Probably something stupid...but still)
Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.
carmenere's review against another edition
4.0
At its core, this is a story about a pre-teen named Pearl. She is as pure white and gritty as the real thing. Like her namesake, she will also lament her home.
Although, from birth, her home is a Mercury Topaz parked beside a trailer park which abuts a garbage dump, it is all she knows and as long as she sleeps in the front seat and her mother sleeps in the rear she is content.
When her mother's boyfriend begins to take up space in the car, Pearl finds an unoccupied trailer to do her homework and get away from Eli. To her surprise, she's not the only one using the trailer. Someone is stockpiling firearms. They will change her life, not once, but twice.
Without being preachy, this novel explores, foster homes, social services, poverty and the gun trade. The characters were sympathetic and well drawn.
The reader, at its conclusion, can only hope Pearl's future will hold something good for her, yet this reader's a bit skeptical. I can almost sense a sequel is in the offing!
Although, from birth, her home is a Mercury Topaz parked beside a trailer park which abuts a garbage dump, it is all she knows and as long as she sleeps in the front seat and her mother sleeps in the rear she is content.
When her mother's boyfriend begins to take up space in the car, Pearl finds an unoccupied trailer to do her homework and get away from Eli. To her surprise, she's not the only one using the trailer. Someone is stockpiling firearms. They will change her life, not once, but twice.
Without being preachy, this novel explores, foster homes, social services, poverty and the gun trade. The characters were sympathetic and well drawn.
The reader, at its conclusion, can only hope Pearl's future will hold something good for her, yet this reader's a bit skeptical. I can almost sense a sequel is in the offing!