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jbragg6625's review against another edition
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
jennamartis's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
kduffy's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
wilsonkayla's review against another edition
5.0
A Thousand Acres is a bleak book. It is also so full of rich details and impossible to understand characters that it is impossible to put down. A loose retelling of King Lear, A Thousand Acres is told from the perspective of the oldest daughter and takes place on a farm in Iowa during the Carter administration.
I’ve lived in Central Illinois all my life, surrounded by corn and soy bean fields, so the setting was deeply familiar. My family stopped farming a few generations ago, but my husband’s granddad was a farmer. Hell, my next door neighbor is a farmer and I live in the middle of a sort of city. I’ve learned a lot about the ways of farm life, the politics, the family dynamics, ect. through conversations with my mother-in-law as we’ve driven up and down country roads. I ask my husband way too many questions about corn. So for me this story felt weirdly personal and that drew me in and kept me in. I should say that my husband’s family is not at all like King Lear and my mother-in-law is wonderful and has never tried to poison anyone.
Even if farming is a far off thing for another reader, A Thousand Acres tells a universal story of greed, indecision, difficult families, and the desire to leave a lasting legacy. The characters are prickly and hard to get a grasp on, and they often struggle to grasp themselves. Bad things happen to bad and not so bad people. If you aren’t interested in a story without a positive outcome, I get it and go ahead and skip this. But if you can handle that, A Thousand Acres offers an electrifying story and beautiful, meticulous prose that transports the reader directly to flat blacktop with corn rows rustling in the background. It is immersive, even if you aren’t, like me, only a couple of miles from such a scene.
I’ve lived in Central Illinois all my life, surrounded by corn and soy bean fields, so the setting was deeply familiar. My family stopped farming a few generations ago, but my husband’s granddad was a farmer. Hell, my next door neighbor is a farmer and I live in the middle of a sort of city. I’ve learned a lot about the ways of farm life, the politics, the family dynamics, ect. through conversations with my mother-in-law as we’ve driven up and down country roads. I ask my husband way too many questions about corn. So for me this story felt weirdly personal and that drew me in and kept me in. I should say that my husband’s family is not at all like King Lear and my mother-in-law is wonderful and has never tried to poison anyone.
Even if farming is a far off thing for another reader, A Thousand Acres tells a universal story of greed, indecision, difficult families, and the desire to leave a lasting legacy. The characters are prickly and hard to get a grasp on, and they often struggle to grasp themselves. Bad things happen to bad and not so bad people. If you aren’t interested in a story without a positive outcome, I get it and go ahead and skip this. But if you can handle that, A Thousand Acres offers an electrifying story and beautiful, meticulous prose that transports the reader directly to flat blacktop with corn rows rustling in the background. It is immersive, even if you aren’t, like me, only a couple of miles from such a scene.
sassysparky's review against another edition
5.0
This book smacked me in the face! Very rarely do characters and storylines stick with me but every time I had to put this book down I would keep thinking about it until I could read it again. I read Some Luck last year and can't wait to dive into the rest of the trilogy and some more of Smiley's novels.
mary_binzley's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
clicheanna's review against another edition
4.0
I wanted to give this book a review based on its existence by itself, rather than the quality of a Shakespeare retelling. I adored how the author captured feelings of anxiety and jealousy in imagery that only makes sense inside the narrator’s head — Ginny’s metaphors and analogies at first seemed a little too abstract, but the more you get to understand her, the more her hierarchy of emotional control parallels her descriptions.
Similarly, what Ginny focuses on and retains as important is not intuitive, but fit perfectly as the extent of her unreliability. The author was wonderful at staging this book completely inside a character’s head, rather than trying to relay an objective circumstance. Ginny’s mental state unravels at the same pace as the story’s intricacies.
However, as a retelling of King Lear, the ending left me a little unsatisfied. The author establishes the story like King Lear right off the bat — the sisters all have names with the same starting letter, Larry instead of Lear, a farm instead of a kingdom, two brothers intertwined with the family. I didn’t expect as many characters to die, but ultimately the point of King Lear is the senseless tragedy of the ending. A Thousand Acres does not feel like a tragedy. It feels like a coming-of-age, a story of reestablishing your future. Ginny is left with a bittersweet life for the audience to evaluate, instead of facing consequences for, I mean, anything. The development of King Lear is also critical — from senility to madness to clarity — but Larry is never portrayed as more than objectively bad. Sure, the other characters mention he’s not a bad guy, but do you ever believe it after everything Ginny and Rose experience? It’s certainly intriguing — what does the rest of the town see in Larry that Ginny doesn’t mention — but never given a chance to be considered. I liked A Thousand Acres as its own story, not as a Shakespearean novel.
Similarly, what Ginny focuses on and retains as important is not intuitive, but fit perfectly as the extent of her unreliability. The author was wonderful at staging this book completely inside a character’s head, rather than trying to relay an objective circumstance. Ginny’s mental state unravels at the same pace as the story’s intricacies.
However, as a retelling of King Lear, the ending left me a little unsatisfied. The author establishes the story like King Lear right off the bat — the sisters all have names with the same starting letter, Larry instead of Lear, a farm instead of a kingdom, two brothers intertwined with the family. I didn’t expect as many characters to die, but ultimately the point of King Lear is the senseless tragedy of the ending. A Thousand Acres does not feel like a tragedy. It feels like a coming-of-age, a story of reestablishing your future. Ginny is left with a bittersweet life for the audience to evaluate, instead of facing consequences for, I mean, anything. The development of King Lear is also critical — from senility to madness to clarity — but Larry is never portrayed as more than objectively bad. Sure, the other characters mention he’s not a bad guy, but do you ever believe it after everything Ginny and Rose experience? It’s certainly intriguing — what does the rest of the town see in Larry that Ginny doesn’t mention — but never given a chance to be considered. I liked A Thousand Acres as its own story, not as a Shakespearean novel.
dwilson's review against another edition
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This is not my usual type of book but was recommended in "Reading Lesson". I enjoyed it more than I thought. It drifts along as if setting the reader up for a huge calamity but does not adhere to "King Lear" totally
lediamond4's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
“Well, it can’t get any worse.”
I must have said this at least a dozen times while reading this bleak story about a family dealing with incest, abuse, suicide (right?), sickness, death, and more death. Oh, and they farm, and if you know anything about farming, you know that it’s brutal work. So yeah, this was bleak.
Umm. Critically speaking, this book was well written. It was immersive. I liked (?) the stories each of the characters had. Despite Ginny being the main character, she seemed like the most passive. The side characters were more colorful and interesting than her.
Idk man. This one was depressing.
I must have said this at least a dozen times while reading this bleak story about a family dealing with incest, abuse, suicide (right?), sickness, death, and more death. Oh, and they farm, and if you know anything about farming, you know that it’s brutal work. So yeah, this was bleak.
Umm. Critically speaking, this book was well written. It was immersive. I liked (?) the stories each of the characters had. Despite Ginny being the main character, she seemed like the most passive. The side characters were more colorful and interesting than her.
Idk man. This one was depressing.