Poor English and obscenities make this one to skip.
359730
Another story by a non-English speaker, it clearly lacks words in many sentences, or has similar-sounding words which make no sense in the context.  The author also has a big problem with run-on sentences, some being 4 or 5 sentences combined, leaving the reader feeling mentally breathless.  Also, punctuation is often wrong - in particular, commas seem to be inserted randomly, or missing where needed.

But worst of all, conversations have more & more of the "F" word and other obscenities as the book progresses.  I read 40 % and couldn't stand any more.

If you like to quickly skim books and fill in parts of the story that are missing, and  don't mind a barrage of obscenities, you might enjoy this.
529027
This series has marginally likeable characters, predictable, formulaic plots, and a serious  need for accurate proof-reading and editing.  They are ok for a light read if you can get past the errors of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and diction.  The most glaring and repeated errors involve the author's poor understanding of irregular verbs and past participle, comma rules, and the proper placement of the personal pronouns "I" and "me."  The past tense of weave is wove, and the past participle is had woven, not weaved.  Slink becomes slunk, not slinked.  The pronoun I is always placed before the verb, and the pronoun me belongs after the verb.  Even more irritating to my sensibilities was the author's attempt at writing a cockney accent for residents of the neighborhood known as "The Dials."  Ms. Caldwell frequently, but  inconsistently, substitutes the diphthong oi for the long i sound.  This is her sole expression of the accent.  With a competent editor the stories would be much more enjoyable.  As it is, they are just tolerable.
1835069
I'm sorry but this is horrible. It's stream of consciousness, horrible grammar, and disorganized. I really wanted to like it but it is useless.
612313
The language was unnecessarily foul.  I only watched about 10 minutes of it then quit.
1014192
The book was probably written for a generation of young uninformed people who revel in using the raunchy word. It takes the place of having a good command of English. I will read no more of her books.
516989
I read this novel because someone close to me sent it with an enthusiastic recommendation. Her reason was the lyrical descriptive language, which is justified praise. However, I found the novel otherwise almost comically terrible: the characters are wooden cutouts with no depth, the plot, such as it is, is moved along mechanically, the dialogue is cringe-inspiring, a parody of itself. " `If you could get a taxi and take my suitcases out, Moses dear,' " she said. " `I'm too weak.' " Cheever does not show, he tells: "Betsey loved her neighbor," "Betsey felt wonderful," etc. Here's a classic dismissive passage: "It was the kind of relationship that was useful and peaceable enough until Moses began to lose interest and then Beatrice got ardent and demanding." Oh? We don't get to see; we just take note.
In between the lyrical descriptions of seaside and woods, Cheever just mechanically summarizes the action, skipping from one character's saga to the next, and sometimes merely referring to whole episodes in a few dismissive sentences, as in the above passage.

There are a few nearly-unreadable chapters purporting to be the diary of the family patriarch, Leander, written entirely in sentence fragments: "Writer went to work day after confab about poor father...Got morning papers for delivery and looked at help wanted ads..."

We do not know what any characters look like other than from worn-out adjectives; old women have gray hair, tired looks, and pot-shaped hats with flowers or cherries on them; young women may have "golden skin" or "golden hair," but beyond that, they're invisible. Every character is a clich: the stingy, eccentric old female relative who holds the purse strings (there are TWO of these!); the prissy, upright mother who wants to run a gift shop; the "types" living in one of the rich old women's decaying mansion: yes, an aging count named deAlba, a "Mrs. Enderby," an Italian handyman named Giacomo all of whose dialogue ends in "a": "I'ma Giacomo. You comea with me." "She'sa no good for night driving. She'sa nearly dead."

I realize this novel won a National Book Award, but it's beyond me how that could have happened. It was painful to read one cartoon-like encounter after another and one tired stereotype after another: the virginal, prissy, but yielding "golden-haired" woman; the eccentric, rich, capricious elderly women (Cheever must have it in for eccentric rich old ladies), the (also) old-maidish, unhappy long-lost daughter of Leander (who shows up suddenly, then disappears just as suddenly from the plot); the two grown sons who go out into the world, get married, and then at the end we abruptly learn: "In the early summer both Betsey and Melissa [their wives] had sons and Honora was as good as or better than her word," presumably, granting the family fortunes to her heirs. It was impossible to care about (or even picture) any of the characters, or to see anything remotely realistic or interesting about the chronicle itself.

Much of the criticism of this novel claims that Cheever was a great short-story writer whose writing couldn't extend itself into a novel. I do remember liking his short stories; so maybe that's the whole problem. He just can't do a novel. But how this book won an award, and has endured for this long, is a mystery.
1312204
I initially gave this book one star, but I have to admit that I've read worse.  This book has a so-so plot with shallow (at best) characters.  My biggest problem was that the grammatical errors were so numerous that it was painful to read the book.  It's really so simple:  "I" is a subjective pronoun, "me" is an objective pronoun.  Just because a phrase has more than one object does not change the rule.  You say "Henry is going with me." and "Henry is going with Jim and me."  NEVER use a subjective pronoun as the object of a verb or preposition (as in: "Henry is going with I." or "Henry is going with Jim and I.")
2381407
The grammar and spelling is so poor, it served as an unbearable distraction and I returned it for a refund.
1690208
Pass on this one. Not only is it too short for the cost of the book, but it's not really funny, either. Sure, the first couple are amusing to see (Supposedly) intelligent people--lawyers--make verbal mistakes when trying to say something, but after the first few it quickly loses it's novelty.
873697
This is pretty poor writing, even though it seemed like it might be funny, the lack of literary skill made it a chore to read.
2323597
this reads like it was written by a grade schooler.  The author should really take a course in the English language.  Beyone that, it was riddled with cliches and stereotypical characters.
998854
I ordered this book for a friend but, after it arrived, found myself motoring off to the local bookstore for something more suitable. And to the post office to send this one back. A random sampling of references I found almost insultingly simplistic include: "as far as possible," "broad daylight," "goof off," "good night."  This last is defined as "Expression of farewell used when parting at night or when going to sleep." Does any competent English-speaker need this phrase defined? And isn't this one of the first phrases non-English-speakers are taught in language class? Who, then, is this definition for? I could easily pull an equally ludicrous example from each of this book's 729 pages but these few should suffice to make the point.  Of the reputed 10,000 idioms listed in this book, my guess is that perhaps no more than 1,000 are of any merit. And that's being generous.  If you're looking for a stimulating, informative lexicon of interesting idioms, along with more detail on their origination, look elsewhere.
4356200
Too much profanity, horrible sentence structure, very difficult to follow.
4615064
Amateurish, sometimes fun to read, but essentially something you can skip.
1848166
I was disappointed. Vulgar language constantly does not substitute for coherence and humor, which the Brits are usually lauded for. Too hard to even hear the humor over the f words. Annoying and unfunny.
3960861
Nowhere in the item description was there a clue that this would be abridged. It ruined plans for projecting a Kindle edition and following the audio. Also, the narration is pretty bad in that the reader did very little research on how to pronounce Greek names. She just butchers common names so badly I gasp. She has little to no grasp even of character and reads without mood, empathy, or change. Every single moment is cheerfully chirped as if she were a museum guide explaining the wonders of the human body--even when lepers are losing their limbs.
289502
This story is based on to many sterotypes to count. His characters are too basic. And the dog understands spoken English better than most people I know.