Paint It Black: A Novel by Janet Fitch
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Book Reviews of Paint It Black: A Novel
Book Review: very depressing but good
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this because I loved Janet Fitch's White Oleander. Paint It Black will not make you feel good about life, but never the less i couldn't put it down. It makes you think about things.Book Review: Never disappoints
Summary: 5 Stars
Fitch had me at Oleander. Was awaiting this newest novel and was not disappointed. Fitch has a style of her own. Was dark in parts but overall a really great read.Book Review: So much darkness in such a young soul...
Summary: 4 Stars
I like to read easy, entertaining literature. I'm easily impressed and dark books leave me with dark thoughts afterwards. I don't know why I'd even bought this one; maybe there wasn't anything I liked at the moment.
So I started reading, wasn't very impressed at the beginning, was very depressed, after reading few pages and I had to start over three times. I don't really know the exact moment I got hooked on this book, but somewhere around page 80 I couldn't stop reading. It felt masochistic at the times but I finished it in one breath from then on.
This book is about two people who were clinging to each other to give their existence a meaning. Until one of them gives up. And the other is shocked because she did not see it coming. Or did she?
In the weeks following Michael's suicide Josie realizes there were many hints something was very wrong with Michael for months, but in her love bliss she just couldn't accept that her only "perfect" relationship is going downhill. And now she is going backwards, step by step, acknowledging what was there the whole time but she'd just refused to see. Because she was just an ordinary, uneducated girl with no special talents or prospects for the future before Michael made her feel special. Before he not just discovered her, but invented her. And now again she is just an ordinary girl left with the burden of guilt and dark thoughts.
The plot here is not very important; the prose was so beautiful I felt in love with Filch's sentences.
Compared to "White Oleander", which is also heavy, the difference is (to me) that "White Oleander" leaves reader with more hope for the character's future but with Josie all that is left is once bright silhouette now painted black.
Book Review: Another fabulous read from Janet Fitch
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved "White Oleander" and couldn't wait to get Fitch's next novel. However,I was put off by the early reviews of this book, which pointed out the novel's look at Los Angeles punk culture (I have my issues, please don't ask). Once I was able to get beyond Josie's (recently fashioned) punk exterior, I became very fond of her. This is a substantial, beautifully written story about a young woman who has so much more to her than her love of punk. I felt for her in her grief, and I even felt for Meredith (after she let her guard down a bit). I'll admit I like a novel about grief and all its accompanying emotions, especially when it involves someone who's seemingly so "lost" (as many of us were at 20).
SPOILER ALERT - The ending chapters were great. I loved how Josie went to the scene of her boyfriend's suicide and what she learned there. And I loved the strange but appropriate ending. Josie's opening her heart to another lost young girl moved me. I guess there won't be a sequel, but I'd like to know what becomes of Josie. I ended up feeling closer to her than I did to the girl in White Oleander (I guess I had little in common with either one, yet I could relate to Josie's childhood/adolescence more).
P.S. I may not be crazy about punks, but i do respect their anger toward uber-conventionalists. You know who you are...
Book Review: intelligence will appreciate
Summary: 4 Stars
Janet Finch is amazing. She turns sentences into works of art and in order to appreciate them you must be intelligent. To rate this book at a 1 or 2 is totally unfair to the potential reader and author. One must be able to appreciate the dark side of the human soul and the complexity with which the human mind struggles to do the right thing. If you enjoy an author that totally amazes you with her talent and characters who are troubled, you will really enjoy this book! I hope it doesn't take Janet as long to write her 3rd book as it did her 2nd.