A review by cheries35plus
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

2.0

This is a story about Tom Wingo and his belated attempts to come to grips with his abusive childhood. His sister has made yet another suicide attempt, and Tom comes to New York to see her and speak to her psychiatrist. They both have never mentally healed from their abusive childhood. Half of this story is flashbacks of their upbringing, which was full of mental and physical abuse.

I loved the first 200 or so pages. After that, it felt like trying to swim in molasses. This one is near 700 pages, but 200 to 300 pages of decriptives could have been cut out with no difference made in the plot. Whole pages could be skipped at a time with no effect, and by the end I skipped a lot of pages. My stubbornness will often not let me DNF a book. This is my first Conroy novel, but I do not feel impressed enough to give him a second try. The descriptiveness is overdone, and I hear he writes of the same subjects repetitively, which is just not for me.

Contains offensive racial slurs, profanity and a descriptive rape scene. Contains many incestuous undertones. A positive note though, this abusive family may make you feel a lot better that maybe your upbringing was not so bad after all.