Member Profile
| Name : | Martha L. |
| Gender : | Female |
My Reviews
Our book club is located in a retirement community in TX, so we are all of a certain age. Those of us who were raised in the South confirmed that the book was accurate in its portrayal of the time and place. We marveled at how much progress has been made in 50 years, and yet, how some things are still pretty much the same.
Not eveyone in our book club enjoyed this one as much as I did! I found it to be a refreshing perspective of a difficult time in the life of a teenager who is working hard to become an adult. The language didn't bother me, but it did some gals. As a traveler, I enjoyed learning about the locales where the book took place.
Wonderful character development and dialog. Some club members thought that there wasn't enough story to keep them really interested, although they enjoyed the book. I would read anything that Julia Glass wrote, because I like the way she expresses herself. Different strokes for different folks, I guess!
Thaumbs up all around.
It was interesting to contrast my impressions of places that I been with the descriptions of the author in 1865. Parts of the book were very funny...but not enough parts.
We all enjoyed it...which is kind of unusual! We were all amazed at how different the lives of the characters were from the lives we\\\'ve led. Google the term \\\'lost generation\\\' and see if it helps clarify their lifestyle.
Don\\\'t miss this one. It\\\'s fast paced, exciting, and informative. Most Americans don\\\'t know that there was an Armenian genocide. I don\\\'t know how the male author manages to write from a female protaganist\\\'s point of view so convincingly!
The Armenian genocide is not widely known of in the USA. I'd heard references on occasion, but didn't know if it was a real thing or not. Now I know. It was real. This book forced me to go to maps on the internet and to explanations of the history of this region. It was absolutely fascinating, and I'm so glad I read it. One of our members found it to gory and depressing. The rest of us loved it.
Stegner does a great job with rich character development. He has the ability to make the reader feel as though he or she is in the story as a slient observer. His love of nature always shines through in his stories, which I enjoy. I expected that some of our members would say that it was too slow for them, but everyone loved it!
Our members all agreed that the best part of the book was the info on Monarch butterflies at the beginning of each chapter. We found the book too much like a soap opera....
A challenging read
Our book club, with many members who volunteer at our local library, voted to read this book. They universally hated it! Too many unfamiliar names of people and places; too much history of Mali. But they all agreed that they had learned something, from the member who had never heard of Mali, to the members who had only heard of Timbuktu in their youth, as a reference to a far away place. We all know much more about NW Africa, Mali, the struggle that so many Islamic cultures experience with jihadists, and the dedication of one man to save the history an important time and place of intellectual history. A good map or two at the reader's side will make the reading much easier!
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