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Light From A Distant Star (2011)

by Mary McGarry Morris(Favorite Author)

3.37 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307451860 (ISBN13: 9780307451866)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Crown

review 1: To the reviewer who complained that this book took too long to "get to the point": go read a comic book. Morris is known for focusing on characters more than plot; that's what I like about her. Please don't pressure her to change. There are plenty of tightly plotted crime novels and thrillers out there, full of characters I'm given no reason to care about. I like reading about people.You can tell Morris is interested primarily in people, too. I wasn't surprised to learn that she was once a social worker. She's seen too much of life to be a snob. She describes Dolly (!) and her girlfriends as looking slightly mussed, like dolls that have been handled a little too roughly. That's a typical description for her, at once compassionate, vivid, and unpretentious. Morris writes we... morell but her prose is not fancy; it's a vehicle for what mainly interests her (and me, as a reader): human behavior.I do have one gripe. I know this book has been compared to "To Kill a Mockingbird," but I think that's partly because the author's attempts to transplant her own childhood to the present time are unconvincing. If you're going to write from memory about what it's like to be a 13-year-old, set your book in that time; don't write about your childhood in the 1950s and then randomly add references to thong bikinis and the Internet.
review 2: As usual I wish for a half star option, in which case I would give this 2.5 stars. This was a fairly good story, but I didn't think the characters were particularly well drawn. The main character, Nellie, a 13 year old girl, was supposed to be compelling and charming (I think), but I found myself frustrated with her constant lying and misbehavior. Perhaps most challenging was that there was not a clear idea of time or place. It seemed like the author was often trying to capture a bygone era (trying too hard for a To Kill a Mockingbird feel), yet it was set in current times. Similarly, it seemed like it was trying to be a "Southern novel" (again conjuring TKAM), but was actually some place up North. Several of the other readers in my book group loved the book, so perhaps it was just the mood I was in. less

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