Very Depressing, But Makes You Think
356569
I liked the idea of the book, but the ending was very difficult. The hopeless feeling was important, and I think there are ideas to be learned from it, but I like a story where the human spirit triumphs. However, the point of the book was to make people think, and it certainly did that. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after I read it.

I originally rated this book as 2 stars. Later I changed it because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally I had to add a fourth star. Though I think some things could have been done differently, I have to say this book deeply affected me.
1505270
This book will make you think. You may or may not feel any particular affection for the characters. I can't say that I did. But they do seem real, with wonderful jealousies and reservations and habits of thought and emotion guiding them through life, ever so haltingly. Noone is innocent, but noone is guilty either. Life teeters between joy and suffering, but how can it truly be suffering when one knows there will be joy again? And by the same token, how can it truly be joy, for it is so very transient, until the next period of suffering. Indeed, as short as life is, how can suffering truly be suffering and joy truly joy when it is so close to ending in either sense? But still we are jealous, still we are hesitant, still we give into desires, still we love, and need to be loved, and hurt those we love, and care for those we love, and if ever we spend time thinking too much about how soon it will all be over, well, we might just be inclined to not care at all, although we still would.

Rare is the novel, or the anything, which leads you to think you might have some new flash of insight as to how the whole damn thing works...

You have to tip your cap to Kundera and say, good job. Does he see more since he saw it though the prism of communism, and its peculiar form in Prague? Or would a man such as Kundera been able to paint a similar picture in pre-WWI England, or the golden years of California, or the roaring twenties of NYC? There is something universal here. I feel I have only scratched the surface of what he was trying to communicate.
2825324
First of I must say that I've never seen the film - I was drawn to read this book - and indeed anything Dennis Lehane had written - by having read his wonderful novel 'Shutter Island'. This book didn't grip me in quite the same way but it was still an enthralling read.  The biggest problem I had is the whole thing is so depressing - there is the sense of a tragic fate hanging over the characters' heads, the sense that they are already doomed by the class and the neighbourhood they are born into.  The identity of the killer was pretty easy to guess - all the evidence is there once you get on the right track but that isn't the real climax of the book, so in a way it doesn't matter.  I would certainly recommend it but with the warning that is very much a downer - don't read it if you are feeling seriously depressed!
1848813
Well written, heartbreaking....... much food for thought.  A good step back to look at what matters in life.  Not an easy read, not something you pick up for fun, but well worth the time spent. I would recommend this book with that cautionary note.  My husband has terminal cancer and perhaps it struck a chord with me more than it might in others........... I read it in one weekend.
1209013
A thoroughly depressing good read. Recommended.
1885197
When I first chose to read to read this, I was rather excited and interested, but I never expected that it would knock over as much as it did.  All I could think when I first started reading this novel was, "this is the most depressing Dr. Seuss book ever."  Even though it was depressing in places, it was as extremely beautiful.  Personally, it felt like this intimate look at this group of people and how they choose to live their lives - without the filter that we all use when we're in public or in front of other people.  Its a quick read but it definitely stays with long after you finish reading it.
3601028
I gave this five stars despite the fact that it was one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. It's got extraordinarily beautiful artwork. I believe all done by hand. Done by the same people who did "The Triplets of Belville". It's depressingly sad. A realistic story... but awful. I mean, I started sobbing like halfway through and didn't stop. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend watching it. It's a good moral to the story. But a soul crushing one.
4617642
This story is about three brothers whose parents are both dead.  The oldest had to pass up going to MIT to take care of the other two.  There are lots of times in the story that sad memories come up, and it's really sad.  They struggle with things, but they overcome, and they realize how much each loves the other.  It's a pretty good book, but I probably wouldn't read it again.
2693025
This books tells us about a horribly depressing situation. Katrina was the culmination of so many things that could go wrong. This books is the product of a lot of interviews and research. In the end, it feels more like a story than fact. The truth is, we will never know exactly what happened at Memorial Hospital after Katrina and while it is easy to sit back and judge after the fact, most people can't predict the decisions they would make when no decision is a good one. This was a very depressing book about a very depressing situation, but in the end it felt like a story more than fact.
1643710
This is a loooong book that took me a loooong time to read.  And, it is pretty depressing -- all the way through, one depressing thing after another revealed from the past or contemporary.  How much can one character take (which is probably why he spends half the book contemplating or tying to kill himself while his friends plead with him).  Such extremes - on the one hand, each of these longtime friends is amazingly famous in a particular field:  famous artist, famous actor, famous lawyer...  On the other hand, there is lots of death and abuse.  It definitely offers a look into the situation of child molestation and abuse and its lasting repercussions, along with fairly gruesome details about cutting oneself and other types of self harm.  Not quite sure why I stuck with it.  I will give it three stars because, somehow, it did make me stick with it through all 36 or so tracks...  So glad it is over.
3762028
This is, perhaps, the most depressing book Ive ever read. I read a book once about a man who was shipwrecked and never rescued, but it wasn't true. This book is true.
Its a hard read. Its not a fun read. I had to pick it up and put down. Read a while and put it down. Nevertheless, it was compelling. It was like reading about Hell. Except this Hell had no Saviour, no happy ending.
When those of us outside New Orleans think of Hurricane Katrina we think of levees breaking, government failure to help people, water, water everywhere and very angry people. We recall seeing millions of dollars of property damage, people standing on their rooftops, the Superdome filled with displaced residents.
I never before thought about those who couldn't even get to a rooftop or climb aboard a boat, those who were in the hospital, those elderly residents of nursing homes. A hospital isn't just staffed with doctors and nurses. Keeping a hospital open requires the whole team, from maintenance workers to security to housekeeping to those making meals for both patients and employees. All them ended up trapped in a facility ill-prepared for a catastrophe, where the auxiliary power station was located on the ground floor, doomed to flood. The things that went on in Memorial Hospital (and others), the decisions the staff made, the refusal of the parent company to try and get them help, the dark cloud of doom and death that hung over the hospital is something no one can comprehend who wasn't there, but author Sheri Fink does a good job of helping us feel everyones pain. When the doctor decides to euthanize patients after five days of Hurricane Hell, we understand the motivation even if we are outraged at the action.
Every hospital administrator in America should be required to read this book, then submit their detailed Emergency Preparedness Plan.
2363785
After starting this book I almost walked away because it was soooo depressing. The concept is interesting but the storyline is a bit harsh, especially for anyone who has suffered any type of abuse. The ending was problematic; it's not really a happy ending at all. Very sad in many ways. But then again maybe it is meant to make you read the next novel to see if Rose ever finds happiness? I'll probably never know because I don't believe I will read the follow-up. I suggest finding a different book to spend time with. This one leaves you feeling very unsatisfied.
2264523
I will start by stating that I am not a big reader of non-fiction. The reason I read this book is because of the cover; I saw the cover and wondered why the boy looked so sad and lonely. This is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Frank McCourt tells the story of his family with such heartbreaking reality but with a humorous side as well. It made me hug my children and be thankful for all we have. I couldn't put the book down until I found out what happened to the little boy on the cover. I even bought the sequel, Tis before I finished Angela's Ashes
271230
After reading the first chapter, I thought this book was going to be much different. Then I read the second, and realized what at least half of the book was about: some time-travelling person. I had to read this for my Women's Studies college class, and I have to say that this is one of those books that is just depressing the entire way through. You have the time travel stuff that breaks this up and keeps things hopeful, but back in her own time Connie seems just more and more screwed as the book goes on. I won't deny the book is interesting, because it certainly is, but it's not for me.

And it's not because I can't like a dark book. I absolutely love 1984, and that bittersweet ending hit me harder than any book I've ever read. But here I don't really feel suspenseful of what's going to happen next as anytime something even remotely good happens, something bad comes to ruin it right away.

Either way, the book was pretty cheap to get so there's that.
2572955
It is good but very depressing.  I am glad I never had their experiences.
383079
This is one of the most depressing pieces of literature I have ever read. There are no moments of high drama--even moments that could be high drama are delivered with such an air of depressed resignation that they evoke no more than a sigh from reader before she turns the page--there is no hero to love, and the heroine is helpless, hopeless, and more than a little stupid. HOWEVER...something kept me reading. I read all the way until the bleak, depressing end, and the only thing that stopped me from buying the sequel was that I had run out of my book allowance for the time being. I can say that the book is well-written, and that the characters are...vivid isn't the right word for a book this depressing...real, I guess, would be the word. I've already said there are no heroes, and likewise, even the villain isn't painted in all-black. I will end with saying, it was an engrossing read, as I hardly put it down, until I finished it.
4271310
This book was really depressing. I kept on reading it, but I felt extremely depressed afterwards. It's a good history lesson on the holocaust though, from the POV of a holocaust winner.