tarakingwrites's review against another edition
4.0
Well, here's something: I'm about eight pages in and it's already knocked me on my butt. I read the first paragraph three times before I could go on. Phew. This one's gonna be a doozy.
philipachen's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
lcgerstmann's review against another edition
2.0
*Spoilers*
This is a horror story. Except without vampires, zombies or werewolves. The monster is old age....and it is terrifying.
A disturbing look into the deterioration of a family and a marriage and of the mind and body.
The story takes place in the late 90s and is about an elderly couple in the midwest and their three adult children. Enid (the mom) wants nothing more than to spend one last Christmas together in the house where she raised her family. The problem is... her family. Her husband Alfred is suffering from Parkinson's and dementia, on top of that, he is a typical Archie Bunker, an asshole to everyone, especially his wife. Their children are all on the precipice of their own mid-life crises and unable to deal with the demands of an ailing father and needy mother. The oldest Gary, is your stereotypical upper middle class suburbanite in denial about his own mental health. Denise is a hardworking and successful chef under constant scrutiny from her mother for her lack of a husband and children who is just coming to terms with her homosexuality and this realization ruins her career. The youngest, Chip, is a horny, irrational teenager trapped in a man's body. He loses his job as a professor at a liberal college over an affair with a student and ends up involved with a Lithuanian gangster. They are all a mess. They are all completely self-absorbed. This family is dysfunctional.
I'm ok with dysfunctional but I had a hard time with this family because only once in the whole story did I think they actually gave a damn about each other. They obviously don't like one another, but they should love each other at least a little, that is what the basis of a family is, right?!
What probably made this book even harder for me to read was that it coincided with me visiting my grandparents. They are of the same generation as Enid and Alfred. They are actually so much like Enid and Alfred it is scary. My grandfather was a very proud man and his body and mind are failing him, as you an imagine, he is not taking this very well. The parts of the story where Alfred falls into a bout of dementia are hard to read and not only because of the excessive use of the word "turd". Then Alfred wants to kill himself, you can understand why and you can understand why his son just might let him and that is disturbing. My grandmother could give Enid's neediness and nagging a run for its money. I'm not sure her own children like her anymore either, I know they would give her some Mexican E if they could. I'm a mom. I'm at times needy. The idea of my children not liking me or loving me is frightening.
This book is remarkably well written. I'm sorry to give it two stars, it just left me feeling...too old.
This is a horror story. Except without vampires, zombies or werewolves. The monster is old age....and it is terrifying.
A disturbing look into the deterioration of a family and a marriage and of the mind and body.
The story takes place in the late 90s and is about an elderly couple in the midwest and their three adult children. Enid (the mom) wants nothing more than to spend one last Christmas together in the house where she raised her family. The problem is... her family. Her husband Alfred is suffering from Parkinson's and dementia, on top of that, he is a typical Archie Bunker, an asshole to everyone, especially his wife. Their children are all on the precipice of their own mid-life crises and unable to deal with the demands of an ailing father and needy mother. The oldest Gary, is your stereotypical upper middle class suburbanite in denial about his own mental health. Denise is a hardworking and successful chef under constant scrutiny from her mother for her lack of a husband and children who is just coming to terms with her homosexuality and this realization ruins her career. The youngest, Chip, is a horny, irrational teenager trapped in a man's body. He loses his job as a professor at a liberal college over an affair with a student and ends up involved with a Lithuanian gangster. They are all a mess. They are all completely self-absorbed. This family is dysfunctional.
I'm ok with dysfunctional but I had a hard time with this family because only once in the whole story did I think they actually gave a damn about each other. They obviously don't like one another, but they should love each other at least a little, that is what the basis of a family is, right?!
What probably made this book even harder for me to read was that it coincided with me visiting my grandparents. They are of the same generation as Enid and Alfred. They are actually so much like Enid and Alfred it is scary. My grandfather was a very proud man and his body and mind are failing him, as you an imagine, he is not taking this very well. The parts of the story where Alfred falls into a bout of dementia are hard to read and not only because of the excessive use of the word "turd". Then Alfred wants to kill himself, you can understand why and you can understand why his son just might let him and that is disturbing. My grandmother could give Enid's neediness and nagging a run for its money. I'm not sure her own children like her anymore either, I know they would give her some Mexican E if they could. I'm a mom. I'm at times needy. The idea of my children not liking me or loving me is frightening.
This book is remarkably well written. I'm sorry to give it two stars, it just left me feeling...too old.
karieh13's review
3.0
While I am all for reading about disfunctional families - I just wasn't sucked in by this one. It was a good read, sure, but I must have missed the boat. (Hee, hee.) I didn't see what all the fuss was about.
dcmr's review against another edition
4.0
A remarkably sweeping, complex, dense, sad, irreverent, whale of a book.
batbones's review against another edition
In 60-plus pages and that was enough. If the author hoped for crass ribaldry - even in the spirit of mockery - to convey humour then he would be disappointed, as is this reader. The affair between Chip and Melissa was gratuitously meaningless, a series of tasteless sex scenes fronted by two characters who are little more than walking cardboard cut-out failings of the imagination, fulfilling only, one suspects, the pleasure of the writer who so generously coloured in the details. This reader can brave word vomit and odd syntax in the spirit of characterisation and narrativised monologue, but not uninteresting characters whose 'quirks' (and not particularly thought-provoking ones at that) occupy the whole of that shell called their personality. Reading 60-plus pages was enough: they give no reason to go further.
lisa_berrones's review against another edition
4.0
It was a pretty decent book, but I'm not sure which side of the Franzen debate I fall on. Definitely not my new favorite writer, but I'm not sure he deserves all the vitriol from reviewers and other authors.
magnetgrrl's review against another edition
I started this in college and couldn't get into it; found it massively boring. Doubt I'll give it another chance ever, but you never know.
ashrafulla's review against another edition
4.0
I ended up loathing every character in this book for their whiny deficiencies, which is probably part of the reason I loved this book. There was no hero or good guy to me; every person was not just flawed, but flawed in a way that made me annoyed with them. Alfred's idiotic stubbornness, Enid's annoying shallowness, Chip's pathetic intellectualism, Denise's pathetic confusion, and Gary's holier-than-thou arrogance. Even the minor characters (Caroline, the Passafaros) got under my skin. Instead or maybe as a result, I enjoyed the trials and tribulations.
The writing was excellent as well; Franzen intermittently adds these really long paragraphs that detail psychological moods during the small action going around. The pace of the action fits the pace of the diction: fast and jumbled when things are fast and jumbled like Chip's contemplations, sharp and quick when things are sharp and quick like long conversations. It leads to an overall sense, from diction to organization to plot, that you are on a well-told ride of a story.
Disclaimer: this read has a hump in it similar to the hump Chip Lambert talks about in his screenplay. That hump is Chip's first story; if you can digest that, then the rest of the story is very good.
The writing was excellent as well; Franzen intermittently adds these really long paragraphs that detail psychological moods during the small action going around. The pace of the action fits the pace of the diction: fast and jumbled when things are fast and jumbled like Chip's contemplations, sharp and quick when things are sharp and quick like long conversations. It leads to an overall sense, from diction to organization to plot, that you are on a well-told ride of a story.
Disclaimer: this read has a hump in it similar to the hump Chip Lambert talks about in his screenplay. That hump is Chip's first story; if you can digest that, then the rest of the story is very good.
novelesque_life's review against another edition
1.0
ZERO STARS
"After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children are all making catastrophes of their own lives. Enid however, has her heart set on one last family Christmas." (From Amazon)
I only liked the sister's voice in this novel. A better book on dysfunctional families I would recommend reading Douglas Coupland's ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC.
"After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children are all making catastrophes of their own lives. Enid however, has her heart set on one last family Christmas." (From Amazon)
I only liked the sister's voice in this novel. A better book on dysfunctional families I would recommend reading Douglas Coupland's ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC.