Depressing, engrossing, hard to read
349041
Just like I didn't know where to go with the title of the reveiw, I am unsure how to head in the reveiw itself.

This book was a lot of things all wrapped up together.  It was so depressing and dark, and yet I found myself unable to put it down as the story moved along.  Phil was bizarre, controlling, and more than a little insane.  Brittany was a pawn, her mother a useless drunk.  The author's style made it hard to follow the plot.  His way of creating dialogue with disjointed words and sentences and no quotation marks made it difficult to keep track of who was speaking at times.  Luckily Phil's voice was so bizarre it was made a bit easier when he spoke.

This book was written in what I would consider a very "literary" style.  The desriptions were complete and at times moving.  But literary doesn't have to mean unreadable, and at times the strange method of dialogue made this the case.
I enjoyed the story itself, the ending tied everything including the title up fairly neatly, but wonder if I wouldn't have enjoyed the telling of the story more if it had been done in a slightly more traditional stlye.
3672256
This is a rather depressing book, with characters you care about , but all are mentally unbalanced in some way.
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.
727256
I would rate this around 3.8, not quite up to a four star.  This is a very depressing story.  It was excruciatingly painful to read.  It concerns mental illness among a few family members and the impact of this disease on the whole family.  There is no short term solution here and the novel in my view gave a fairly realistic portrayal of those with the disease as well as how it impacted all of the other characters throughout their lives..  The characters were all very well defined.  The only reason I hesitated in giving a higher rating is that I thought the ending was very contrived.  I do not want to say more as it might be a spoiler.
3998802
A sad, thought provoking, profound and compelling portrait of a family whose lives are colored by a mixed race marriage and unfulfilled dreams.  The events of the story are told through the perceptions of the parents and children living in small town America during the mid 1950s and 60s.  The writing is hauntingly beautiful and simple, but the story is incredibly disturbing.  This was an emotionally difficult read.
2493908
This book is definitely not one that I can recommend.  I found it very difficult to read and to understand.  I had the feeling that I get when I read poetry that I cant connect to.  I will give it two stars since I did enjoy the section of Ruby, Maggie and Ephram when they were young.  And the powerfulness of Ephrams love for Ruby and his efforts on her behalf were very touching.  Also the eerie atmosphere was very well created with literary finesse.  But Ruby herself never came alive for me as a human being.  Her portrayal felt disjointed, almost as though she was just a vessel to be used in the book to show the brutality against African Americans during that time period.

I at first thought that the demonic possession of this woman was only a figment of her imagination and mental illness caused by the horrific events of her life.  But no, the demon was an actual character in the book, as were the ghosts of the murdered children who lived in Rubys womb.  While that would not normally turn me away from a well-written book, I just never could connect with this book.  This is a bitter, angry book with no hope of redemption.  Im not a reader of light, fluffy books and tend to lean towards the darker side of literary fiction, but this book was over and above what I can stand.  It was confusing and difficult to read.  This book was described by the publisher as a novel of passion and courage but I found it to be one of crude lust and hopelessness.  Im very glad to put this novel behind me and to start reading something else to get this bad taste out of my mind.

I won this book in a LibraryThing giveaway.
282778
When I finished reading Caribou Island, I can honestly say that my feelings for the novel were all over the place. I had a very difficult time trying to figure out if I actually liked the book or if I strongly disliked it - it definitely could have gone either way. And now, several weeks later, I'm still trying unsuccessfully to wrap my brain around this novel. On the one hand, the writing is excellent - dark, atmospheric, the kind of writing that draws the reader into a book, regardless of the actual story. On the other hand, the characters were flawed to the point where I strongly disliked them, the story itself is extremely depressing, and it left me with such strange, confused feelings.

I still can't say for sure that I liked or disliked Caribou Island, but what I can say is that I appreciated the novel. The writing really is stunning. Several times throughout the book I had to pause and ask myself if I wanted to continue reading such a depressing novel, and every time I decided to continue on with it because of how much I was enjoying Vann's writing.

Every single character in this novel is impossible to like. Gary is obsessed with building this cabin, no matter the cost, and basically ignores his wife's excruciating pain as she deals with her migraines. Irene has already given up on Gary and everything else in her life, and is simply putting on a show for him, building the cabin because he wants her to. Rhoda is okay, but her boyfriend is not a good guy and she doesn't seem to see him for his true self. In a way I admire Vann for creating these despicable characters that the reader can't help but want to understand, but also I have to admit to being annoyed with how much I disliked these people. It was difficult to find any redeeming qualities in them, to connect with them at all, which made the overall reading experience somewhat depressing.

I have a love/hate relationship with the ending of Caribou Island. It was very fitting to the rest of the story - it's shocking, sad, and actually makes a lot of sense given the rest of the book. But it made me feel so very depressed and when I closed the book I had a difficult time shaking the feelings of sadness I was experiencing. It was just such a hopeless ending, such a terrible thing to happen to this family - it made it difficult for me to say I enjoyed the book as a whole.

So, all that being said, in the end the word "appreciate" best captures the way I feel about this novel. I appreciate what David Vann did here, even though I didn't particularly like it. I would recommend Caribou Island for readers who delight in fantastic writing and darker, more somber fiction.
1023181
This is the most depressing book I've read in years. There was nothing happy in this poor man's life. He had mental problems from a early age and this book just grinds away at it relentlessly. Anyone that thinks Theo and Vincent had some storybook brother looking after brother relationship needs to read this. I don't know how Theo stood it all those years. Vincent was truly abusive with him, as well as most everyone around him.

Van Gogh is still one of my very favorite painters and I was lucky to see the last exhibit of his work in Los Angeles about 12 years ago and it was a revelation to see the paintings in real life. But the life of the painter is a hard pill to swallow.

I have also read the Naifeh's book on Jackson Pollock (another grim life story) and the detail that went into that goes into the bio of Vincent as well. But for some reason I am finding this book an agony to get through.

The last complaint I have is the ponderous size of the book itself--at 900+ pages it's not exactly an easy book to curl up with. I'm about half way through the book so far, but I find myself skipping over a lot of it to avoid reading grim incident after grim incident. It gets really old after a while.

That said, if you are into Van Gogh, you need to read it. If for no other reason than it paints the most realistic picture of the artist ever written. It's just that sometimes the truth is a little hard to bear. If you want to maintain your idealized view of Van Gogh, don't read it.
1096895
I really wanted to like this novel, but it's rather depressing and, truth be told, I never really made a connection with the characters.  This is a very finely written piece, don't get me wrong, but my questions were never answered. Why the returned come, what their purpose is, where they go when they disappear... I just don't know, and that was the main reason I picked up this novel; I wanted to know.

Instead, this novel focuses on the appearance of the dead (not zombies, mind you), and how the world decides to react to such an anomaly.  However, no one has answers, so it's more or less the blind leading the blind, with some embracing the dead, some detesting it, and others ready to lock them up forever.  Like I said, it's a very depressing tale. We learn how the government decides to handle it, which isn't very well, more like the Japanese Internment Camps than anything else, and we get to know characters... only to watch them traverse terrible atrocities and, ultimately, die.  But why they emerged from the earth again, and what their purpose was aside from driving the story, well, I don't know.

What I did enjoy about the novel, though, was that the chapters break up to follow certain characters, even though it's told in third person, and we meet new returned and hear their brief stories.  But again, it is all very tragic, and truthfully, I felt somewhat awful upon finishing it; angry with humanity.  But maybe that was the purpose?  People can turn evil, which is shown in this novel in very real sense, and while there are some good people interspersed, I really came out of this with a depressed soul and a feeling of disillusionment with humankind.

Overall, it's very well written, but such a depressing tale isn't really my speed. I guess I was hoping for mystery and danger, a sense of horror or something, but that's not what this novel is about, and it just wasn't for me.

(Please note: I use the rating system of Goodreads, which is different from Amazon.  My overall personal rating is that this novel was okay.)
2800245
This was a hard book to read because it was so totally depressing.  I understand that people have hard lives, survive abuse, etc., but this just seemed to be one long litany of horror story after horror story, to the point where started to sound like someone who can only see darkness and nothing else.  I guess that I inferred from the title that it would have more emphasis on wisdom and hope and wasn't prepared for the actual content.  It seemed to be more of a confused jumble of fragmented parts of the author (Native American? Battered and abused woman? Mother? Daughter? Survivor?); the presentation felt more like bits and pieces that never really fit together into a cohesive story.  Definitely went into the "sell back" bag.
2173270
Summary:
Marah Levi is part of the lowest class in her society.  She has no magical abilities, but she is very intelligent, musical, and has a love of ancient languages.  When she helps a girl in the marketplace, she is brought to the girl's family home, a wealthy home.  There she meets Azariah, the girl's brother, who is also a lover of ancient languages, but in the upper class.  When a disease plagues society, turning eyes black before killing the victim, Marah and Azariah become an unlikely duo set to find a cure in an ancient book.

My thoughts:
This is a depressing read.  Even for an adult, this is difficult to get through.  Of course the subject is difficult.  It is about intolerance, segregation, and the poor way one class treats another.  It is also about death and plague.  There really is nothing light within the story.  There is no humor and it really rips at your heart.  At the same time, it is very well written.  The descriptions are clear and crisp.  Glewwe does not add in unnecessary words, but is able to brilliantly paint a picture and pull you through the story.  While the language is easily written for middle graders, I would say this is much more of a young adult novel.  That is not to say that younger readers shouldn't read about these themes, but the tone and misery throughout the entire novel may be a bit much.  It's hard to get through something that makes you feel horrible with each turn of the page.
3980675
This is a story about a person who has difficulty truly knowing and understanding those whom he calls close friends. He is unable to correctly process the clues he has encountered. Well written, but depressing!
4528950
This could, quite possibly, be one of the most depressing books I'll read this year.  Seriously, poor Elizabeth cannot catch a break here.

The first part of this quite hefty novel is set in England - we meet Elizabeth as a child, hopelessly infatuated with her cousin, struggling against the disapproval of her uncle, and trying to contain her strong will.  All the while, as I was reading this book, I was reminded that there was a whole lot of research done (and it's visible in the writing) and that Elizabeth was a real person - not just a character made up and given a hard life.  This woman lived through the prejudices, the horrors of poor life - and I do mean poor in a sense that no one today could possibly understand.

I also had been under the impression that the Puritans were unjustly persecuted - but from the portrayal of them in this book... I don't know if I could have lived as a Puritan.  Y'all, they were some whacked folks. Rules, regulations, restrictions - this was the life they led.  Elizabeth was handed over and over a really hard portion of life, but she handled it with grace that was admirable.

This was a seriously long book - and I'd only recommend it if you are really interested in learning about Puritan life and the establishment of families in New England.  Overall, most of the history in this book was filled with new facts for me, so I consider that a win, but it's definitely not a book I'd read for pleasure.
4870024
While saying I hated this book, I'll still say that the author, and possibly the translator, is brilliant at their crafts. It was richly evocative, painting both the landscape and the characters inner and outer lives exquisitely. My complaint is personal - the bleakness was incredibly depressing, with no respite except for violence, which you found yourself grateful for.
I kept waiting for some relief, some light, some hope. Sigh. My problem, not the authors.
I wish I hadn't read it. I'll choose more carefully next time.
4643442
This was a Book Club assignment. While it is very well written, the subjects and the characters are very depressing. I read over a third and just did not want to finish it. After the B/C review nothing was said that changed my mind.
3796841
Although well-writtern and illuminating I found this novel a very hard read. For one thing there are so many characters it's hard to keep track of them all. The three main plot lines center around Leonora, a sweet 12-year-old girl, who has been taught to be polite, only to find that works against her, Paul, a sensitive 16-year-old, who runs away from a neglectful mother and abusive stepfather and spends years as a drifter, searching for peace, and Judith, whose craving for excitement lands her in a seedy motel and eventually into a boring marriage that is its own kind of hell. Not a book for the faint-hearted but worth the journey if you're brave.
1504543
Flannery O'Connor was a gifted writer, able to convey the hidden pulses inherent in human life, bringing to the forefront the controversies that exist in the battle between secularism and Christianity.  "Wise Blood" is a difficult novel to read for several reasons; it is a disjointed mishmash of stories that O'Connor expanded upon, with characters who appear and disappear at random.  But the main difficulty is its subject matter - at its core is Hazel Motes, an angry young man who has been discharged from the Army, who is desperately trying to escape the hold that Jesus has on him.  It is a raw and sometimes scathing satirical look at society and the role that religion plays in our everyday lives.

The story begins with Hazel Motes taking a train to the city of Taulkinham, where his attention is immediately captured by a blind preacher and his daughter.  Hazel cannot get the pair out of his mind and follows them to their boarding house, taking a room so that he can be close to them.  Hazel is insistent that he does not need religion, and to prove his point sets up his own church - the Church Without Christ - with a membership of one.  Preaching of the "new jesus" who will come, Hazel increasingly finds himself in situations he doesn't want to be in.  The visions he has for his life are failing to come to fruition until he takes a drastic, irreversible step to cement his strangling faith.

O'Connor's creations are not likeable characters - they are fierce, ugly people who reflect the darkest sides of humanity.  The disjointed structure makes for a frustrating read at times - sometimes too much happens, sometimes nothing seems to happen.  When the end finally comes, it comes too quickly and out of the perspective of the main characters.  While I am a huge fan of O'Connor's works, her brilliance shines brighter in her short stories.