bfth23's review against another edition
4.0
Definitely liked this more than The Magnificent Ambersons. I relate to Alice very much and can remember feeling as she did about many things (when I was younger). I'm also like her as in the end I do what I have to do (and I admire her for that). I don't know if I'd read again, but I'd definitely recommend.
d_iris's review against another edition
3.0
You see, this is why we write reviews. To remember just how we felt about a story, or a character, or a world.
I liked this story; I mean, I remember REALLY liking this story. I had seen the movie with the indelible Katherine Hepburn, and I thought it was so charming. I thought she was so charming, and naïve and good natured. It was just a joy to watch her want, and then a nightmare to watch her lie, and feel shamed and ashamed. And that's where the book differs.
In the film, Alice is flighty and lighthearted, and believes she can will herself into the upper-class: The crème de la crème. And in the end, she does. But in the novel, though she tries, and lies and learns, she is not rewarded for it. Life smacks our girl in the face and she has to move on and move past. It hurt me to read that, believing she would be okay in the end. And at the time I thought it was unfair for her to have that ending. But years later, looking back, it wasn't all that bad. A simple smack on the wrist. A life lesson to keep. A way to help her realize and grow.
I think Hollywood gets a little too caught up in the romance of the now to fully see and appreciate the romanticism that could be in future.
3.3/5
I liked this story; I mean, I remember REALLY liking this story. I had seen the movie with the indelible Katherine Hepburn, and I thought it was so charming. I thought she was so charming, and naïve and good natured. It was just a joy to watch her want, and then a nightmare to watch her lie, and feel shamed and ashamed. And that's where the book differs.
In the film, Alice is flighty and lighthearted, and believes she can will herself into the upper-class: The crème de la crème. And in the end, she does. But in the novel, though she tries, and lies and learns, she is not rewarded for it. Life smacks our girl in the face and she has to move on and move past. It hurt me to read that, believing she would be okay in the end. And at the time I thought it was unfair for her to have that ending. But years later, looking back, it wasn't all that bad. A simple smack on the wrist. A life lesson to keep. A way to help her realize and grow.
I think Hollywood gets a little too caught up in the romance of the now to fully see and appreciate the romanticism that could be in future.
3.3/5
sophronisba's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
There are many ways in which this book doesn't age well -- its treatment of race and gender, in particular, feel incredibly dated -- but I still found it intriguing, despite the fact that I don't think Booth Tarkington understands his main character well at all. Tarkington does have a keen observational eye, which makes this book feel more like a tragedy of manners than realism.
mjacton's review against another edition
3.0
This is the fourth Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in my progression through the winners in chronological order. And this is the second novel on the list by Booth Tarkington, so it's hard not to compare this novel to The Magnificent Ambersons.
Though I gave them both three stars--they're both well-written, regional novels stuck in their time--I would give this novel half a star more for its somewhat more complex narrative and nuanced take on both gender and race.
That is NOT to say that either gender or race issues are treated in any way that is just or acceptable, especially race issues. I'm a white male, so I have to write as one. While between The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams, Tarkington seems to treat African Americans more complexly in Alice Adams, at the same time, he treats them as more explicitly less human in the present novel. There are simply more exceptions.
As for gender issues, well, again I'm male, but there's something to be said for the final condition of Alice...but that's a scant victory and would mean spoilers.
As with The Magnificent Ambersons, this novel is best left in its time and place except as a study of that time and place. It's well-written enough with an engaging plot, but there are any number of those that would challenge the reader more.
Though I gave them both three stars--they're both well-written, regional novels stuck in their time--I would give this novel half a star more for its somewhat more complex narrative and nuanced take on both gender and race.
That is NOT to say that either gender or race issues are treated in any way that is just or acceptable, especially race issues. I'm a white male, so I have to write as one. While between The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams, Tarkington seems to treat African Americans more complexly in Alice Adams, at the same time, he treats them as more explicitly less human in the present novel. There are simply more exceptions.
As for gender issues, well, again I'm male, but there's something to be said for the final condition of Alice...but that's a scant victory and would mean spoilers.
As with The Magnificent Ambersons, this novel is best left in its time and place except as a study of that time and place. It's well-written enough with an engaging plot, but there are any number of those that would challenge the reader more.
mellambert's review against another edition
2.0
In the same fashion of the other book I read by Takington, "The Magnificent Ambersons," this book started very slow. Unfortunately it didn't pick up. Maybe I just don't get it, and maybe I'm missing something completely with this book but I just didn't like it.
I found the characters to be extremely unlikable, their passions were a bore, the father had no backbone and the entire book crept along so slow I thought it would never end. And maybe that's the point of this book. Maybe you're not supposed to like any of them, and you're supposed to learn from their self-infatuated, greedy lives.
But I don't have to read a book to find those kinds of people so I'd rather not read about them.
Anyway, I found this book to be totally worth missing. If you are going to read a book from the early Pulitzer prize winners then read "His Family," and then promptly move on.
I found the characters to be extremely unlikable, their passions were a bore, the father had no backbone and the entire book crept along so slow I thought it would never end. And maybe that's the point of this book. Maybe you're not supposed to like any of them, and you're supposed to learn from their self-infatuated, greedy lives.
But I don't have to read a book to find those kinds of people so I'd rather not read about them.
Anyway, I found this book to be totally worth missing. If you are going to read a book from the early Pulitzer prize winners then read "His Family," and then promptly move on.
peixinhodeprata's review against another edition
4.0
I had a strange start with this book. It was so weird, it almost seemed surreal. Once I realized it was from 1921 (for some reason in my mind I thought it was more recent), it all started making sense to me, and I took it for what it was, a brilliant satire and comedy of costumes.
All characters are so well designed to make a point, and to signify something. The theatrical mother, the weak father, the con artist brother. But the best of all is surely Alice herself, that lives in a world that is a stage where she is always performing.
Loved it. Specially because I was expecting nothing from it.
”It’s funny; but we don’t often make people think what we want ‘em to, mama. You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, ‘Now, seing me do thus and so, people will naturally think this and that’; but they don’t. They think something else - usually what you don’t want ‘em to. I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.”
All characters are so well designed to make a point, and to signify something. The theatrical mother, the weak father, the con artist brother. But the best of all is surely Alice herself, that lives in a world that is a stage where she is always performing.
Loved it. Specially because I was expecting nothing from it.
”It’s funny; but we don’t often make people think what we want ‘em to, mama. You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, ‘Now, seing me do thus and so, people will naturally think this and that’; but they don’t. They think something else - usually what you don’t want ‘em to. I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.”
evaseyler's review against another edition
1.0
I hated the movie with the burning passion of 999 burning suns. Kate or no Kate. Decided to see if the book was any better, and it really was not. Few things are more annoying to me than people who pretend to be something they are not, lying through their teeth, superficial, silly creatures. Mother was the worst offender: nagging, shallow, and... nagging. In the end it seemed that Alice got her act together, though I am not so sure about the mother. At any rate, this was a terribly irritating read.
pharmacdon's review against another edition
4.0
The story is set in a lower-middle-class household in an unnamed town in the Midwest shortly after World War I. The center of the story focuses on the young girl Alice Adams who tries to climb the social ladder and her flirtations with Arthur Russell who belongs to the upper class. But later on “She breathed more rapidly but knew that he could not have detected it, and she took some pride in herself for the way she had met this little crisis. But to have met it with such easy courage meant to her something more reassuring than a momentary pride in the serenity she had shown. For she found that what she had resolved in her inmost heart was now really true: she was "through with all that!”
This book won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1922.
This book won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1922.
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