I Totally Meant to Do That Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy I Totally Meant to Do That? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on I Totally Meant to Do That. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

I Totally Meant to Do That ReviewJane Borden spent about a decade in New York City doing what apparently many a college graduate southerner does, and that is simply continue the "frat" life in the city that never sleeps. Jane divided her autobiography into three sections (Dive, Sink, Surface) to delineate the major epochs of her life in the big city. Within each section are chapters that are more or less stand alone short stories, rather than a fully conceptualized development of her experiences and reflections as she grapples with the dichotomies between New York and North Carolina.
In the first section aptly titled "Dive", Jane's dialogue is full of visual interest, and laugh-out-loud moments that will have you fully engaged as she literally seems to dive into a completely different life-style with North Carolina mores as her compass.
At the start of the second section titled "Sink", Jane relates the story about her Aunt Jane and the manners book. Here we begin to really get a feel for the differences between New York, and small town North Carolina. We also, get a glimpse of Jane's working and social life in New York. So there is an expectation that you're about to understand who Jane is beyond the surface. But that depth never comes, and with each subsequent chapter, Jane becomes oddly more and more distance as a person. As each chapter seems more random and haphazard, Jane begins to rely almost exclusively on her Thesaurus to form sentences. So awkward does the story telling become, that by the time the third section "surfaces", you really don't know who this person is, nor do you care.
The concept of this book was a great one, as was the promise of the first chapters; but the execution of the novel as a whole fell short, and really ended up as more of an outline of what a more accomplished writer might do. There never was a section titled "Swim", and that is appropriate here, for this story never quite does.I Totally Meant to Do That Overview

Want to learn more information about I Totally Meant to Do That?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel ReviewThe new novel TEN THOUSAND SAINTS is certainly interesting and to me at least quite original. The book begins on New Year's Eve 1987 in fictional college town Lintonburg,VT (um if you notice Lintonburg contains the exact same letters as Burlington the home of the University of Vermont and the fictional and real cities have many similarities). Two young teenagers, Teddy and Jude, are out partying with their new friend Eliza from Manhattan and tragically Teddy is found dead the next morning after among other things huffing Freon and snorting cocaine. Both Jude and Eliza feel very guilty because Jude pressed the Freon on him and Eliza supplied the cocaine. Actually Eliza offered Teddy more than cocaine that night and she soon discovers she is pregnant from her one time encounter with the now deceased teenager. Eliza, Jude and Teddy's older half brother Johnny form a family of sorts who hope to raise Teddy's baby.
Adults are as important to the story as the teenagers and the effects of parents' actions on their children is a major theme of the book. Jude and his sister Prudence's divorced parents both make their living from marijuana as their dad Les is a prosperous grower and dealer while their artist mother Harriet, perhaps the most stable parent in the novel, makes her living from blowing glass bongs and pipes. Eliza's mom who at the beginning of the story is also Les's girlfriend is a self absorbed ballerina while Teddy and Johnny's mom is an aging hippie known for disappearing when ever things get uncomfortable. Johnny's dad is a prison inmate and Teddy's dad is an unknown man of Asian Indian descent who turns up toward the end of the book and is not what this reader at least expected.
The teenagers turn to Straight Edge music with the accompanying austere lifestyle strongly influenced by Hare Krishna beliefs. It is implied that this is a reaction against their parents' hedonistic ways. Johnny who is a musician and tattoo artist living in the Tompkins Square Park area of Manhattan's alphabet city marries Eliza in hopes of giving his dead brother's baby a chance to stay under his influence even though he has no romantic interest in women. Johnny seems to epitomize the Straight Edge lifestyle and is known as Mr. Clean because of his shaved head and vegan habits.
TEN THOUSAND SAINTS is a novel well worth reading. AIDS, homelessness, gentrification, parenthood, adoption, and drug use are among the many topics incorporated in the book. The author does a great job of bringing the late 1980's in the East Village to detailed life and the choices of the kids and parents in the book will linger in the reader's memory.And the book ends with a very appropriate and effective postscript from 2006 on the last night the famed punk venue CBGB's was open.
Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel Overview

Want to learn more information about Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Open City: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Open City: A Novel? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Open City: A Novel. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Open City: A Novel ReviewNew Yorkers are often heard to say that they have not yet been to Ellis Island or taken a walk to the Cloisters. Teju Cole's Open City nudges us out of our complacency and opens our eyes to everyday life, the life that passes us by while we rush around. This book makes us pause, look around, think of the people past and present who have viewed these same city streets. A well thought out and wonderfully written prose pulls you into a year of Julius's life: his sensitivity to what goes on in another's life, his failure to fully reckon with his own delusions. As other reviewers have said, this book is really not for readers in a hurry. In the midst of our hectic life, Open City has given us a reason to slow down and add a few more years to our years. Nicely done, Mr. Cole.Open City: A Novel Overview

Want to learn more information about Open City: A Novel?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...