donna

This book never captured my attention; I did not find any of the characters engaging or realistic or interesting.

O'Connor is so talented, I kept notes while I read her short stories to attempt to make some small effort at emulating her masterful way of creating characters that are true to life with just the right amount of exaggeration to make her point. Such a gifted writer who left us too early, but left behind beautiful gifts in the writing she was able to complete.

It's lovely writing, but perhaps because I've just read Gilead again, and Lila, in the past few weeks I felt I'd already heard much of the same story. And I wasn't as interested in it as I was in Lila's story, though I do find Glory and Jack compelling, honest and interesting characters.

I had a hard time getting into this book, starting and then putting it down several years ago until I decided to give it a go again after reading about it in Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Novel. In the end I'm glad I did. It was confusing to keep track of everyone the way she jumps back and forth in time, but the writing style grew on me and I ended up underlining sentences in almost every chapter that spoke to me or that were so beautifully done I had to recognize them in some way. I'd give it 3-1/2 stars if I knew how to half a star.

I listened to this on audiobook and it was hard to follow because the book goes back and forth in time. If I were reading it I could flip back and remind myself where I was in time, but I wasn't able to do that listening to an audiobook. So, though it was beautifully written and the characters were well-done, it was too much of a chore because of the time changes that weren't immediately evident. It was also really sad.