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Prosperous Friends (2012)

by Christine Schutt(Favorite Author)

3.02 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0802120385 (ISBN13: 9780802120380)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Grove Press

review 1: This book kind of snuck up on me. I really didn't know where it was going for a while but then the tension broke and there was this return to reason and decency. That's the only way I can describe it. I found it surprisingly satisfying. Also it was a very quick read. In a way it's an anti-romance - instead of waiting to find out when the couple is going to get together and you're waiting for their separation and its aftermath. I couldn't really understand why Ned and Isabel stayed together for so long but I certainly know how true-to-life that dynamic can be.
review 2: "I am not turning into the person I want to be," one of the main characters reveals at the end of the book. I struggled with this one mightily. I like to think I can recognize artistry and apprec... moreiate complex inventive writing, but I had so much trouble following the truncated, abrupt, ungrammatical sentences in the first half of the book, I almost stopped reading. And here's the thing: Schutt's own voice seems to change in the second half. The writing gets a bit more fluid, but then suddenly we are introduced to new characters. And there was no time and not enough meat on the bone for me to have any empathy for the characters. In spots she reminded me of Updike, and Woolf, but not enough so. I would read her other work, however, to see why she has such a following. Maybe just this book needed more editing? Dare I say so??? less

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