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lep42's review
5.0
This one deserves a long well considered review when I'm at an actual computer. For now I'll just say that I'm sad to be done with it.
drewsof's review
5.0
For all the wildness of the story and the characters, there is a beautiful lightness to things in this book. Seeing pieces from one chapter track through several chapters later (Saint Catherine of Bologna, the cape, the teeth-licking trick, the parrot-boyfriend, and so many others) makes the reader feel like they're dropping in on old friends again and again, catching moments with them as we can - because this is a busy city. Rainey grows up (in her own way) over the ten-or-so years that this book spans, but we don't get to see the entire process. Instead, we experience just these stories, which might not even be the most momentous (although many are, or at least tie into momentous occasions) but are the stories that, if the reader were to go out and grab a drink to catch up with Rainey, she might tell us. Think about the stories you might tell, if you saw a friend maybe every six months or so - and then you'll see just how marvelous a novel this really is.
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/09/29/rainey-royal/
More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/09/29/rainey-royal/
heypretty52's review against another edition
5.0
As Rainey Royal is Landis's first full-length novel, I expected the writing style to be unpolished and lacking focus. My expectations were off-base entirely.
Landis writes with passion and power of the life of Rainey Royal and all those who touch it. With an absentee mother living on an ashram in Colorado, a philandering musician father working his way through the wave of twenty-something women who show up at his door, two very different and very lost best friends, and one "family friend" whose relationship will forever mar the way Rainey sees men, Landis portrays the best and worst of relationships. In addition to these beautifully developed characters, Landis uses languages that pushes and rips. Gritty, intense, and laid-bare, the story of Rainey made me hurt, cry, and empathize with characters in a way few books do.
Landis writes with passion and power of the life of Rainey Royal and all those who touch it. With an absentee mother living on an ashram in Colorado, a philandering musician father working his way through the wave of twenty-something women who show up at his door, two very different and very lost best friends, and one "family friend" whose relationship will forever mar the way Rainey sees men, Landis portrays the best and worst of relationships. In addition to these beautifully developed characters, Landis uses languages that pushes and rips. Gritty, intense, and laid-bare, the story of Rainey made me hurt, cry, and empathize with characters in a way few books do.
lanner's review against another edition
4.0
Well written. Can't remember when I last got so far into a character's head, and it wasn't always pleasant! In fact, rarely pleasant. Almost didn't finish because of that, but glad I did. Might even read this again, and I almost never re-read. Made me think a lot about female sexuality and how it can be so much a reaction to male sexuality, not really an independent aspect of a woman's personality, and that bothers me. Well--sex is a reciprocal thing, usually, so the interdependence makes sense...but so limiting! And out of balance. Zero healthily adjusted characters in this novel, and they are so vividly beautiful. Except Howard. Howard was an effed-up mess; not beautiful at all.