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Le Vite Impossibili Di Greta Wells (2013)

by Andrew Sean Greer(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8845274608 (ISBN13: 9788845274602)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Bompiani

review 1: Time travel fantasies can be so much fun because of the way the rules of time travel at first seem to free, but ultimately constrict the protagonist. This book set up its own peculiar "time travel" rules- and stuck to them with constraints- but unfortunately it wasn't really time travel. We followed one of three different versions of the protagonist, each of whom could each interact with three different versions of reality. Those versions of reality happened to take place at different historical time periods, but those time periods did not share a cause and effect time line. To me, the lack of a shared cause and effect time line took most of the fun out of the story. The consequences of the protagonists' actions were all limited to each one's very small, personal dram... morea. As a result the story was very small and didn't have a whole lot to say. And while I usually love a good romp through historical NYC, the setting of the story, while technically present, never really transported me to another era.
review 2: Montana Library2Go This book grew on me as I continued to read it, though I have to say that the protagonist did not. I'm not sure at what point I stopped thinking of it as a "3-star at most" book, but when I did finish it I had to admit it deserved the 4 instead. Some of the difficulties arise from the fact that I believe the author intended Greta to be sympathetic, while writing her as someone I just didn't like. I have a hard enough time with main characters that are intentionally written as unpleasant, so for this to be what the author seemed to think was a mildly heroic and nice person was challenging. I found her selfish. Self-absorbed. Also obsessed with the idea that she knew what was best for everyone around her, despite the fact that in every version of her life she had basically managed to screw everything up with her own choices for herself. I kept coming to the conclusion that Greta was one of the last people I would ever want pushing herself into my personal life, whether she was my friend, my niece, my wife, my lover, or my sister. And yet Greta herself never came to the same conclusion, the book ending with her basically being rewarded for her belief that she knew best. Irritating. And yet...it was engrossing. I did find it difficult to set aside. I did find my thoughts turning to it as I ran errands after reading around half of it. The idea is interesting: not just time travel and not just travel to an alternate world/dimension/whatever, but both. Masking any reference to AIDS with the term "plague" sounded a jarring note to me. It's not as if we didn't know what people were dying of in 1985. It might have worked for a different Greta to refer to it in that way, but the Greta who had been living with it and watching a loved one fight against it would not. In other things she called a spade a spade, so it felt like an attempt on the part of the author to hold onto prejudiced readers just long enough to hook them before they realized they were sympathetic to a gay man with AIDS. Disingenuous and I didn't care for it. I don't know. It's hard to review just as it's hard to rate. I can see so many flaws. I can see so many valid complaints. I can see so many different turns the author could have taken. But in the end I feel like the book as a whole was thought-provoking enough to justify 4 stars. less

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