Tim Faulkner Faulkner itibaren Molnaszecsőd, Macaristan
The brilliance of this book is how Hall takes the overly-saturated topic of World War II and analyzes it from a fairly unique standpoint--through the eyes of an incredulous and rather tortured college student, whose personal conflicts often seem to outweigh the conflicts of the war and America in the 40s. Or, do they? Actually, Hall very deftly shows that the personal and the global are irrevocably enmeshed: "I manipulated my father into sounding like a bigot, and then jerked off into a phony fit of righteousness. We hadn't even been disputing over Jews, or about American Legion Post 5 and the First Amendement and Commie rags. No, we were talking about my father going broke in the Depression so the house in Mission Hills was lost; we were talking about Richie Daltrey of the Great Expectations, the drowned suicide girlfriend and the scarred thumb. 'I don't see you fighting it,' my father had said, meaning another disappointment in his younger son the slacker." Add to this a beautifully fractured tableau of the war (Part II) and a very honest recollection of what quickly becomes the past (Part III) and you have a magnificent book. Hall is a narrative guru and he even tosses in a bit of a plot twist--for lack of a better term--at the end. An astounding amount of experience, feeling, and thematic material resides in this short but brilliant novel.
This book was recommended to me by a friend. For about the first third I thought, yeah, this is good, but not head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest good. Then it got head-and-shoulders-above-most-other-contemporary-poets good, really striking, beautiful images, a few images that really just sock you in the gut, really intelligent poems, beautifully crafted. Smart and quietly searing, they really conjure an atmosphere, their own world.
will write a review soon
When I heard that this book's main character was named Flavia de Luce, I expected to read about a middle-aged Italian woman who solved mysteries. Well, obviously I feel really silly now, having read this book. There's not an Italian anywhere to be found! :) This was a phenomenal read. Flavia is awesome, and I love her eleven year-old spunkiness and the fact that she's a chemist WITH HER OWN LAB! Brilliant! If you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Poirot, Enola Holmes or any other well-crafted mystery characters, this series is definitely for you!
I read this book during a time I was reading as many banned and challenged books as I could find. I was and wasn't surprised that this book is challenged. I wasn't because it wasn't offensive, especially since the sex wasn't descriptive. But, the fact that it was about two girls realizing they were lesbians didn't surprise me that it was banned, even thought that is sad.