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The Last First Day: A Novel (2013)

by Carrie Brown(Favorite Author)

3.45 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0307908038 (ISBN13: 9780307908032)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Pantheon

review 1: From the back cover, author Ron Rash writes ‘ Brown has accomplished one of literature’s most difficult feats – to write compellingly and convincingly, about human happiness’. The novel takes place at New England boarding school, where the two protagonists are Peter, the headmaster, and Ruth, his wife of fifty years. I was quickly drawn into the story, which is certainly not plot driven, but most engaging nevertheless. Reflections and reminiscences over a lifetime are divulged, and so the plot unfolds. It was refreshing that the love story was told mostly in retrospect, so the reader is party to Ruth’s perspective as she looks back over their life together. Carrie Brown writes well. She conveys an emotion or a feeling quietly, but with great s... morekill.
review 2: This book was very oddly structured. For the first 150 pages almost nothing happens except a lot of flashbacks in Ruth's mind. Then abruptly we go all the way back to her traumatic childhood and spend the next 150 pages rushing hurriedly through some very disturbing events. I felt like I was reading two separate although related short stories. It was an interesting portrait of an intelligent woman who came of age at a time when women didn't have many options besides supporting their husbands, but ultimately I have no idea what Carrie Brown was trying to say. less

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