Evening (Vintage Contemporaries) by Susan Minot
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Book Reviews of Evening (Vintage Contemporaries)
Book Review: A bit pretensious...not enough payoff
Summary: 3 Stars
The novel isn't BAD, but neither is it GOOD. A large number of readers will swoon over the style and mistake it for substance. I'd give the style 3 1/2 stars (Minot isn't in enough control of her imagery or pacing to merit more; her vocabulary is mostly unremarkable), the substance 2 1/2 stars--I'd give it less, except that one could make an argument that Minot is using the "love affair" of the wedding weekend as an indication of the kind of choices Ann, the main character, makes throughout her life. You could definitely see Ann as someone who mistakes chemistry for character (even she has a problem with style over substance).Book Review: Where are the Quotation Marks?
Summary: 3 Stars
In my copy there are no quotation marks. Some people I spoke to said it's a new "minimalist" trend that to me, if true, is disturbing. I wrote the publisher about it and am waiting for a response. (Was it done on purpose or was it some sort of error?) At any rate, Lynne Truss ("Eats Shoots & Leaves) would have a heart attack.Book Review: Good story, but...
Summary: 2 Stars
Susan Minot's "Evening" is a heart-wrenching story of a life lived full of regret for The One That Got Away. It is deeply sad and, at the same time, beautiful in its sadness.
I was a bit disappointed in the film, but I usually like the book better than any film version I see, no matter how I feel about the film, so I chose to read this one. The first surprise is that the filmmakers should have just used the bare bones of the story--woman finds, loses love in one weekend in 1950s Maine--and not bothered paying Minot for it because that kind of story could be so ubiquitous. Readers who saw the film will not recognize anything except names in this story. The circumstances are entirely different, down to the fact that the Ann Lord of the film has two daughters, while the Ann Lord of the book has three daughters and one son. Who knows what that's about. If the filmmakers didn't think that all these people were necessary, why would they bother optioning the book?
The book, though, is only mediocre. The way that Minot views proper punctuation as a nuisance rather than a necessity is aggravating and makes some sentences more confusing than they should be. (There's a reason that commas exist; it's so people read sentences properly and don't have to read them more than once to understand what the writer is trying to convey.) She uses no quotations, either, which gets a little aggravating. At first, I couldn't decide whether I liked the way Minot jumped back and forth from time period to time period with no discernible process, but, after reading the book, I decided: I don't. It's 1995. Now it's 1954. Now it's 1979. Now it's 1961. It makes one's head spin, and gets in the way of the story itself. The book seems like a stream of Minot's consciousness, and it's really not working for her.
It was a struggle to finish this book. Minot did a good job with character development, though, because I did care about the characters and wanted to find out what happens, although the setup is enough that the "big shock" leading to Ann losing Harris was something I saw coming far in advance.
I would take a pass on this book. It's decent, but not worth the aggravation. The story is good, but, in the end, not very well told.
Book Review: BE A BETTER MOVIE ????????........
Summary: 2 Stars
first off warning to men, unless you are the " sensitive " type ; ) not for you so save the money . God there were times when i had to go back to my previous page of reading ( after laying book down ) to be sure I didn't miss something as it jumped from past to present and back again and then turned into an " LSD" trip of words, none making much sense . yeah I know ...morphine.
also, you never really got to know her children . they were more in the bacround of her life instead of the foreground.
I am willing to bet " the farm ", that this book will be better material for a movie version where it's all laid out there for all the sensitive souls : )
Sadly these same young women will over romanticize this woman's big mistake and instead of her learning and letting it go , then wastes her last moments on earth recalling convoluted memories of a creep guy , making him more then what he really truly was .... A USER !
As someone else insightful said on here, " why would a woman who had such a full life, 3 marriages, 5 kids " spend her last moments dreaming ,hallucinating, whatever about a two timing fast talking schmuck ??? who in fact was engaged & did marry another girl who was pregnant with his kid all the while manipulating this dopey girl into having sex with him !!! good grief .
I don't care if he was the handsomest guy walking . all that gurantees guys like him is a " quicky " and the few sweet words that are the necessary combination to her drawers . no wonder there are so many unwanted pregnancies in the world . wake up and smell the coffee ladies . you guessed it ..i didn't like it nor the main character ..what loser.
" old saying " ...women will give sex for love ...guys will say love to get sex. nothing changes ...just the words . Learn .
two stars for correct spelling .
Book Review: Frustrating
Summary: 2 Stars
I attempted to read this book, but had to abandon ship three quarters of the way through. The author has a lot of flashbacks and her punctuation is really confusing. The main character Ann appears to be on her deathbed and is having flasbacks of a life with regrets. Ann had three marriages and she stews about these marriages but for me I had a hard time piecing together which husband came in what order, not to mention the admirers along the way. What was annoying about this book were the intermittent italicized sentences with no punction that seemed to run on, and trail off into space. I am an avid reader, and I usually eat up books fast, but this one was painstakingly frustrating to finish so I didn't.