Hillary
I expected this to be better because of the hype... Still solid, but I think it could have been cut down.
A friend of mine recommended this book to me a few years ago. She writes screenplays - I have no interest in writing screenplays. I am now taking a creative writing class and after being workshopped a couple weeks ago, realized I am terrible at establishing a plot and action. I ordered a copy of this after my friend told me, again, that I needed to read it, and am so glad I did. It's a great read, has completely changed how I watch movies and will hopefully make me better at inventing plot lines.
Very impressive for a first novel, but less impressive when the novelist is in their 30s, has a MFA, and spends his time with people like Tobias Wolff on the Stanford campus where he works. Still, this novel is entertaining, touching, surprisingly insightful, and very digestible. Plus, the San Francisco/Marin placement of it all wins me over easily.
Very cool idea that you can read this story in any order and it will make sense and ultimately all story lines tie together. The theme of failing relationships/loneliness gets a little bit brutal.
I feel like I got tricked into reading a self-help book. Initially, I was loving the “if you don't feel well, don't smile” ideologies of Burroughs but after chapters like “How to be Thin” and advice on how to cope with a loved one's terminal illness, I was kind of over it. Does this make me a bad person? Maybe. I'm ready to get back to reading some literature.
I read this having heard great reviews and, on the day I started, anticipated sinking back into my couch and reading as much as possible in one sitting. I spent hours reading a handful of pages, taking a break, going back to the book, taking another break, and found myself making a very small dent by the end of the day.
150 pages in, I started falling into the plot but Hazzard's interesting sentence structure and descriptions kept me from quickly blasting through the book. I went on vacation for a month and left the book at home (library copy and I only wanted to bring books I could leave at various destinations). When I came back, I decided to start again and realized I had missed a third of what was going on in those first 150 pages.
The writing in this book is impeccable, the plot is great and this is easily now one of my absolute favorites. It's not an easy read, but this is definitely the type of book someone could re-read every year or two. Highly recommend.
Initially, I was a little disappointed by this. Good Squad is one of my all-time favorites and Egan's preceding short story collection was pretty solid. The beginning of Circus in particular reads like a first novel, but by the end I came around. The story is cohesive and contained and Egan is still a great writer, I just hold her to a higher personal standard, so my scale for her is a little more critical.
I thought the writing in this book was very good, Saltar had some moments of absolute wordsmith showmanship. That said, the plot was almost nonexistent which makes recommending this book to anyone quite a challenge. I doubt most people would enjoy reading this.
I initially wasn't blown away by the premise of this book but July won me over. Very different and sweet. Ended up loving this.
Clearly a masterpiece. This book is very well-researched and well-written it by no means a page turner. It covers a lot of ground re: NYC history and politics but is overall in a league of its own.
The message behind this book - that money managers need to be mindful that investments can't be boiled down to a simple model or equation and that the fallacy that one can truly predict markets can be financially devastating - is definitely an important one. The book itself isn't much of a page-turner and took me a while to slog through. There's a chance someone better versed in finance and asset management could have an easier time with this, but I didn't find it very accessible. Still worth reading.
More like a 3.75-star book than a 4. This was fine, I finished it, but it wasn't as beautiful as Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore. The plot improved as I got further into the book, but overall I found myself underwhelmed.