Welcome to Litsy!

After 60ish pages, this just isn‘t grabbing my attention. Going to have to bail on it, at least for now.

After 5 hours of audio time and another 5 hours left I‘m calling quits on this book. I‘m just not enjoying it enough to give it any more time.

I‘m not sure this book would work for me in print but on audio it‘s not bad🤓 I‘ve done some audio baking and cooking so that‘s a plus😊

This was ok overall. Lots of parts were great. It skips around a lot in narrator and timeline which idyllic doesn't bother me, but this time it took me a while to keep everything straight. The effort to describe and condemn toxic masculinity was welcome and interesting, but I thought it was a little obvious sometimes. I also loved the very specific place names, being from #LFK

The writing was good. I felt compelled to finish this book but I didn‘t love it. I spent most of my time reading it trying to remember why I added it to my ‘To Read‘ list in the first place. I got to the end and still couldn‘t remember. I‘m sorry to say I skimmed the debating competition and training scenes. I found them tedious. I found some of the characters interesting though. Apart from that, this book just didn‘t ‘click‘ for me.

Enjoyed

It is extremely rare for me to bail on a book but this was an easy decision. The beginning alone should have warned me: a young man in a rowboat pontificating to a young woman, never realizing the woman has left the boat to swim to shore. I‘ve had enough of those blowhards in my life. 😂😂 Much like the man in the boat, the writing style almost felt like the reader was irrelevant. On the plus side, this was my view when I decided to bail. 😀

Love most of it! Great insights into 60-80s psychology. A bit disappointed by the ending. But overall great family dynamics

Makes interesting listening ..... https://www.thecut.com/2019/10/the-feminist-mom-behind-this-falls-big-book-about...

It took me a while to grasp the time shifts and I‘ll admit I was lost in large parts of this one. But that being said, it might have been a me problem- the writing I enjoyed, and I think I just got twisted up the plot and what period of time we were in now. Overall an interesting read, although at times, confusing.

I feel incredibly lucky to have an early copy of this novel. It's not often a world-class novelist is a year ahead of you in school and writes a novel set in the decade & town in which you both grew up (and it's not NY or LA or London). Yes, we moved around a lot & I claim more than one city in an "it feels like home way," but of all of those, we get what everyone says is a great literary, political, modern historical Topeka novel?!

As smart and stimulating as you would expect from Ben Lerner, who is becoming one of the most interesting writers presently working. Artfully conceived, daringly executed. Read this when it comes out in October!