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Against The Country: A Novel (2000)

by Ben Metcalf(Favorite Author)

2.4 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1400062691 (ISBN13: 9781400062690)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

review 1: This book, though a novel, is written in the style of a memoir. It is the story of boy who moves from southern Illinois to Goochland, Virginia and the narrator pretty much pokes fun at the place, the people, his family. The writing is very tongue-in-cheek and quite humorous but at the same time very hard to read for very long. The first chapter felt kind of like reading a prologue where I don't mind writing a little difficult and hard to follow -- but then I was ready to settle in and get into the story--but it's just more of the same. The writing seemed more like essays than a novel. It's hard to read more than a chapter or two in a sitting and there was definitely nothing calling me back to read on. I really don't think this writing style works for a novel and I had to r... moreeally push myself to get through the book.
review 2: I started this book twice.I gave up on this book twice.The third time will not be the charm because there will not be a third time.Ben Metcalf’s “Against the Country” is just not for me.It’s rambling, wordy, often overblown descriptions of every detail of the narrator’s life and the world around him is not well-balanced with the total lack of dialogue – at least through the first third of the story, at which point I gave up for good. The story, as it were, is heavy on violence (child on child, parent on child, parent on parent, etc.), drug and alcohol abuse (you just don’t fit in the story if you’re not down with it), sexuality (this is actually the least mentioned thing, which surprised me – although the narrator is still a child where I quit), and racism (seriously everyone is a racist).All of this may well be true about the part of country and the time the author is writing about. The bits just don’t come together well enough for to get into the story.“Against the Country” is available for purchase now.(I received a copy of “Against the Country” through NetGalley in exchange for an honest & original review. This review will be cross-posted at NetGalley, Goodreads, and on my blog.) less

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