lory_enterenchanted's Reviews (582)

The magic the author so earnestly wanted to produce was not there for me, I’m afraid. It was supposed to call up happy associations with childhood favorites, but it struck me as unoriginal and labored. I also was uncomfortable with the MC's quest to adopt a neglected foster child when she has not really dealt with her own issues of parental neglect -- it's transparently an effort to use a child to make herself feel better, and that will just throw him from one problematic situation into another. I know, nobody has perfect parents, but I just could not be happy with the facile ending.

Powerful stories of parallel generations in Ghana and the United States. A whole people's divided history encapsulated, with compelling storytelling. Each story contains pain and heartbreak and yet also a seed of hope.

After reading Judi Dench’s Shakespeare, I went the other way on the read-or-listen question with Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk - part memoir, part music writing by.a concert pianist I'd never heard of but now feel I know in a strangely intimate way. Denk is my contemporary -- we were actually going to college in the Midwest at the same time -- but worlds beyond me in the hugeness of his talent and brains. Still, I sense a kind of kinship as I listen to his story of growth and mistakes and discovery. 

Music helped to comfort him during a difficult upbringing with extremely unhappy and ill-matched parents, and allowed him to get away into a wider world that turned out to offer its own kinds of challenges. He seems to have an incredible recall of every music teacher and lesson he ever had, and writes beautifully about all kinds of pieces, articulating profound, eloquent messages that manage to also be down-to-earth and often humorous. 

Denk demonstrates some passages on the audio, which is why I decided to listen, but I wish there had been many more audio examples (I'll have to look up the playlist). This is a book that will only really appeal to avid music lovers, particularly piano aficionados, but for these it provides much insight into making life more musical -- that is, more harmonious, more fluent, more attentive, more joyful, encompassing the gifts of harmony, melody and rhythm that Denk explores. 

I was completely absorbed by this historical fantasia - the story of a strange and haunted family, intertwined with the nightmare of racial injustice that was woven into the foundations of America. 

After my last disappointment (Any Human Heart) this was better than I expected. Yes, it was old fashioned and the unreflective racial stereotypes were terrible, but nevertheless I really enjoyed the glimpse of a unique theatrical milieu and the vivid atmosphere.

Subverts expectations in that it seems at first to be an origin story for a great actress (Kim) but instead turns out to really be Magnolia’s story of survival and return to her true home. Kim is successful but actually a bit of a fraud. It’s Magnolia who has the chance to discover what truly matters and choose it. 

It’s a fable, a dream, like the show boat itself-metaphor for our journey through life. 

I found this a disappointment. It sounded so good but the MC just left me cold. As an exemplar of spiritually null Twentieth Century Man he was somewhat interesting, but an essay would have done for that. I also did not think the mix of real and made-up characters worked. Rather than giving the inverted characters verisimilitude, it seemed to drain all the life from the real ones, so they were all equally contrived and shallow.

Also not a fan of the disgusting sex scenes, which I started to skip halfway through (wish I’d done so earlier).  Again, perhaps this is how 20th Century Man rolls, but I do not really want to read about it in detail. 

Don’t think I’ll be trying another by Boyd. 

I don’t know what label to put on this. Ironic? It’s amusing but with an edge, not lighthearted nor emotionally romantic. But for the brilliance of the dialogue and the perfection of its structure, it’s one of my favorites. 

Absolutely beautiful. A book to live by. 

This was too weird and dark for me at the moment. And while I enjoyed Carey’s unusual way with words in Little, here it just began to seem annoyingly mannered. It didn’t speak of the character for me, just him. 

Should have been an article rather than a book. An interesting topic but thinly covered. Many questions remain- charlotte is more of a symbol than a person, rather hollow. She wrote a memoir, couldn’t we hear more from that? Also, some sloppy editing—wrong words, repetition.