Didn't reach it's potential; tedious; confusing flashbacks
594815
The plot had a lot of potential but unfortunately the avenue the author took it didn't do it justice at all.  The most irritating part for me was the flashbacks during current dialogue and the only way the reader knows it's a flashback is because of the different names the characters used on the ship.  Personally I think it would've been significantly better if the author would've just allowed the story to develop from when they met on the cruise to how it ended.  All the inner dialogue just made the book even more tedious and I really did have to force myself to finish it.
2018745
Too much back and forth with flashbacks, the actual storyline was unclear, and honestly, I really disliked how every other word out of 78 year old Harriet was " dear" as in " Oh thank you , dear" etc, so unbelievable. I know plenty of 70-80 year old people and most are modern and lively and don't use the word dear like some doddering character in a 1940s movie.  I ended up skimming the last 5 chapters.  It could have been better,  and as a novel with an over 50 year old female  lead character (of which there are still too few), I had hoped for something better and inspiring. As this was, it was choppy, hard to grasp the character's persona, and just did not pull me in.
1475507
i just don't get it.  i read several glowing reviews on this book, but it bored me to death.  i kept waiting for something exciting to happen, but it never did.  i thought about not finishing it, but i kept thinking perhaps something would happen to give the story a little life - but again, nada.  it's just told from a woman's point of view who falls in very tame love with a boy in florida, marries him, has a daughter with him...and that's about it.  there are the obstacles every marriage, every life faces, but it was a very dull read for me since nothing really out of the ordinary takes place in the midst of these obstacles.  i couldn't even invest myself in the supporting characters, really.  i felt like a visitor of the family, listening to them discuss their boring daily routines.
691750
I struggled to get through most of Dearly, Beloved. The elements I loved from Dearly, Departed - rich detail, a complicated romance and modern technology mixed with Victorian era elements - either were absent or only added to Dearly, Beloved's inability to fully capture my attention. Nearing the end, my hopes soared as the action began to outpace the political drama, but it was too little too late.

As with Dearly, Departed, Dearly, Beloved is told from multiple PoVs - six in fact. And again, I found this endeavor to be overambitious due to the lack of distinction; it was too easy to lose track of which character was speaking. Nora, Laura, Pamela - even Bram - all had moments where they sounded like the same person and I often found myself confused about a character's reaction, only to realize that I was mistaken about which character's view I was reading from. And also as with Dearly, Departed, I didn't find all of the PoVs necessary. Vespertine had only brief appearances and Laura's perspective seemingly served only to inflict the story with zombie teenage angst. I feel like their perspectives could have been cut instead of adding length and detail to an already cumbersome plot.

I was constantly confused about supporting characters as well. While I remembered their names - Chas, Tom, Coalhouse, Dr. Samedi - I couldn't remember the details that helped to define them. I couldn't remember their connections to each other, the pasts that made them who they are, or the reasons for their unfaltering trust in Bram. Having read Dearly, Departed almost a year a go, I just couldn't remember these characters, let alone why I liked them.

It also made it hard for me to regard Nora and Bram's relationship with anything but disgust.

"His every memory would one day be physically eaten away by the very thing that had preserved him for me to find; his every injury was destined to be a disfigurement. But until that day, he was mine."

The slow and subtle development of their relationship from Dearly, Departed is over and has been replaced by the stolen kisses of a couple courting in New Victoria. Which should have been romantic and adorable. But instead, all I could picture was Nora enjoying kissing dead flesh.

The rich detail that I thoroughly enjoyed in Dearly, Departed, was also present in Dearly, Beloved. We meet timid Laura, a young zombie who uses her body as a walking garden - opening small holes in her skin, where she sprinkles in dirt and seeds in the hopes of producing life now that hers is over. Chas' crushed voicebox is repaired and sewn shut with ribbon to resemble a corset. The descriptions of Martira's creamy pale skin in comparison to her flaming red hair and Smoke's sagging skin covering his fresh organs were described in such detail it was impossible not to see them both clearly. But while appreciated, such stunning imagery combined with Dearly, Beloved's convoluted plot served only to add length to an already lengthy tale.

Speaking of the convoluted plot, Dearly, Beloved almost had too much going on. The Grave House Gang, Patient One, the Murder, the Changed, the Punks, the aristocrats - everyone had a role to play, and they were usually connected in some way. This should have been fascinating, but instead, it was tedious. Much of the focus was on zombie rights - whether they had any, whether they should be treated differently than the living, whether they should all just be killed - which didn't leave much room for action. And when the action came, many of the plot points were left unresolved, assumingly to be addressed in the next book.

With too much left unresolved, in a lengthy novel that should have been shorter, I can't say I truly enjoyed Dearly, Beloved. There were scenes that I loved, the writing is fabulous and the world-building is spectacular. But unnecessary points of view, unmemorable characters and an overly ambitious politically-driven plot left me craving more action and less talk.
660215
The summer of 1977 in New York City was a wonderful and scary time. It was epic. Son of Sam, the blackout, the Grateful Dead releasing Terrapin Station, and then the Grateful Dead movie, Star Wars, and so much more. The prospect of a big novel about the period seemed interesting.

Alas, the book itself is not. It's long, complicated, and its characters - described in way too much detail - are just uninteresting. I made it to around page 200 before I gave up.

Kudos to the publisher's marketing team. They probably recouped their ridiculous advance.
4807022
How frustrating! I was so looking forward to this book. And it started out fine. The characters are likeable, funny and varied, it's a fast read, and there's loads of spooky stuff to look forward to.
After a few chapters, however, the seams began to show. It started with the baby talk. That alone had me climbing the walls!
It was downhill from there.
With rare exceptions, there's one voice, one sense of humor. Information is repeated with eye-rolling frequency. Way too many things go on that make no sense (witnesses being prepped for a hearing include only friends but no family -- not even the aunt with whom the person lives; a top psychiatrist teams up with a psych grad student, sight unseen; a cop discusses a murder case with two strangers; a doctor has time to hear Mark's life story, gives little medical information, yet Mark somehow knows what the doc should've told him but didn't). Characters know things they shouldn't know yet. The same phrases pop up over and over again. Many words are italicized, probably because the vocabulary's too limited and simple to express any depth of feeling. Regardless of subject matter, the tone remains light, airy and superficial. Cheerfulness doesn't mesh well with a story about psychotics and grisly murders.
REGINA'S SONG is an incredible story! What a shame it wasn't given a more worthy vehicle.
4213599
This book has received some astoundingly strong reviews, much to my surprise.  In my view, it was ponderous, far too long for what it contained, and downright boring in many places.  I really had to force myself to finish it, and only did so because I had heard such good things about it.  There were touches of real brilliance, and a couple of highly charged and exciting passages, but they were imbedded in hundreds of pages of boring stuff.  Personality development was weak - all the main characters seem to have been formed in the same mold, a not very interesting mold at that!  While technology abounds, I found much of it unconvincing, for example, how digital simulations of human beings can inhabit the brain tissue of living ones.  The story really fell apart for me toward the end:  instead of tying up the many loose threads and resolving some of the inconsistencies, things just become more and more bizarre.  Having said this, I also feel that Reynolds has the gift, and will almost certainly get better in time.
392405
I really tried to like this book...really! I struggled through - hoping it would get more compelling. Too many characters, too many shifts in time, too many plot twists - some of them impossible to follow, all of this leading to an implausible ending. After sampling the multitude of 5 star reviews, I expected better.
89283
Ok, I'll mention the few brief moments I actually enjoyed from this movie.  The time travel scenes were decent, but still boring.  There just wasn't enough energy in the movie, I just can't escape that.  Maybe it seemed like everyone was moving along at a half-hearted pace.

Ok, I have to say a good part, um...ok, when they fired that trebuchent (spelling, who knows), and it was a pretty neat visual of the first flaming fireball.  Then they fired back that "magical" greek fire arrow.  The commander guy goes "Oh my god," and there's an ok scene of the catapult bursting into flames, and then he says "you are a magician!"  That was neato for about 1 minute and 3 seconds.  Then back to the same boring slow moving uninspired plodding story line.  Who cares if they get back, I was yawning.

They made one last decent philosophical point at the very end about how one makes his own destiny in history.  The message at first is impressive, but then it gets worse every moment you think about it.  Hmm, time travel back to the past, die of some horrible condition only found in the 1300's (whatever the date).

I'll bet that guy would've been there for like 1 year, and then died of some black plague or something.  I want to cry how unrealistic it is.  From having his ear chopped off itself would've probably killed him from infection, oh but it is all worth it for the lovely Mary Ann or whoever that was.  What about excessive bleeding?  Um, nah that doesn't happen in real life.  I hope the sex was good for the total of 2 days before he got beheaded for being a heretic.

Heartfelt until you remember the real world, and then you realize that everyone still walked around half-heartedly in the movie, but they wore such neat costumes!!  Stick to highlander, get the hell away from this retarded movie.  It was entertaining for about 5% of the time.

Maybe reading the book, I read it is based on, will erase this from my memory.  I hope a wormhole forms and I can stop this movie from being produced so poorly.
2099954
I was looking forward to reading this book, given the outstanding ratings and reviews and the fact that I love these kinds of stories (GFY/Gay! Dads/My Brother's Best Friend, etc.). And I really did like the premise (though it kept reminding me an awful lot of the delightful film "Shelter") and most of the characters, but--

It dragged. Oh, how it dragged. Mostly because of the prevalence of a stream-of-consciousness narration style within the first-person POV, which, by the end, I'd just skip over because it was so drawn out and hashed out. Blah, blah, blah, indeed.

The characters themselves were likeable enough, but I did have one beef with the portrayal of TJ, the Kid. Although described as an exceptionally bright and insightful 8/9-year-old boy, he's portrayed alternately as a temper tantrum-prone 4-year-old and a 50-year-old psychoanalyst. Perhaps the author should have spent some time with children (especially gifted children) to see how they think and how they would express themselves. It just didn't mesh.

This was a story in dire need of an editor's firm hand, not only to clear away much of the unnecessary narrative and water/ocean metaphors, but also whittle down unmanageable paragraphs. And to question why NOT ONE SINGLE ADULT in Bear's life thought to establish his legally-binding guardianship of TJ immediately after their mother abandoned them, even as a temporary guardianship. Guess it wouldn't have given the author another 100 or so pages of additional overwrought drama. If the book weren't an eBook, I'd have thrown it across the room at that realization. So sad, because I'd had high hopes of finding another novel/series I could fall in love with.
1939005
The premise for this story is intriguing: the past meets the present through death scene dioramas and faded old letters. And I expected to enjoy it - a genteel sort of mystery, set in a place I know well, written by an author I enjoy. But in the end, Wit's End felt like a book trying too hard to be about a place, losing the plot along the way. Very recognizable Santa Cruz events and eccentricities over-accessorize the story - to a distracting degree - as do the strong political leanings of the characters. None of that served any real purpose in developing the mystery, which fizzed out in the end. I don't mind having read it, but I can't recommend it very strongly. You can borrow my copy instead!
3972494
As many other reviewers have noted, this film had a lot of potential:  big name actors, interesting story premise, the potential to educate the larger public about the realities of grief.  But ultimately it fails to deliver.  The film is very sad, but it's hard to become emotionally involved with any of the characters because even for people marred by grief, they act too weirdly to connect with.

First, some reviewers have said that these people are cold, unemotional and do not really seem to care that their close loved one has just died.  I didn't see that; the stereotype is that people in grief look obviously sad and do things which we all expect sad people to do, but that is WRONG, especially if the grief is new and shocking (like a daughter getting gunned down at the friendly neighborhood lunch counter across the street from your office where your daughter hung out with you when she was a child).

An 8th grade girl at the junior high where I once served as a substitute teacher was raped and murdered in her own bed by a neighbor who came in through a window.  At the memorial service her mother looked very calm and serene -- she never cried, smiled at people as she shook their hands, and did not look grief stricken at all.  But when I hugged her, she hung on to me like a drowning person grasping a lifeboat and I could tell that she was consumed with grief.  Needless to say, I did not appreciate hearing allthe junior high kids at school the next week 'dissing' their classmate's mother by talking about how 'obvious' it had been that the mother had not cared her daughter was dead.  To be sure, my classes and I had several intense heart-to-heart talks about the paralyzing realities of deep, inexpressible grief and how wrong it is to make assumptions about someone else's emotional state.

But!  That said, it was hard for me to connect with many of the personality characteristics of these characters.  If Jake Gyllenhaal's character and his fiancee were calling off the wedding, why did they not tell her parents together -- especially since the wedding invitations were already being mailed out?  Why did Dustin Hoffman's character not even CONSIDER that maybe his not-to-be son-in-law's occupational plans might change in light of his daughter's murder and, instead, charge "full steam ahead" with the pre-murder plans without even a discussion? (That seemed very unrealistic to me.)

The murdered fiance (Diane) does not seem like someone I would like much:  she apparently manipulated Jake Gyllenhaal's character into agreeing to go into business with her father, and Susan Sarandon's character said she only became a writer in order to please her daughter (which is way weird, to say the least).  And don't even go there with Jake Gyllenhaal finding his 'soul mate' within only a few weeks of Diane's murder.  Yes it is believable he would REBOUND into bed with another woman (out of grief, confusion, feelings of loneliness and abandonment) but it is completely unbelievable that the relationship would be real or permanent.  And what is up with that woman working for years for free for a man who has been missing (or was he a soldier?  It was really hard to make out what was going on at times due to vague scenes and vague dialogue)  I'm sorry, I just didn't get it.

And why in the world were they talking to Holly Hunter, a private attorney, about testifying in a murder trial which is presided over by the District Attorney's office?  That made NO SENSE, NO SENSE, NONSENSE.

And Susan Sarandon stays with Dustin Hoffman because his body up against her butt at night in bed is "home" for her?  Uhhh . . . that's just weird.  Sure, fine -- fight like cats and dogs all day long and have little in common, but still you guys are 'soul mates.'
3825965
The evocative, dreamy, slow-motion previews for this movie are largely from the fascinating, eerie opening 10 or 15 minutes of the film-- with the Wagner soundtrack and the images of the Earth frankly being destroyed. I was hooked by the preview and I was riveted by these picturesque vignettes. The bulk of the film, however, consists of the plodding, repetitive, stilted Part 1: Justine (focusing on one sister's escalating depression during the night of her horrific bourgeois wedding reception) and the more interesting Part 2: Claire (which centers on the other sister's escalating panic at the thought of the earth being destroyed). For me, Part 1 was too long, and Part 2 should have been developed-- it could have been the entire movie. I wanted to love it. I only liked it. The film just doesn't deliver on the promise of the opening montage.
848292
As a mother of a dyslexic pre-teen, I'm always looking for exciting new fodder to excite my son about reading and The House on the Corner has the potential to be an excellent candidate. Unfortunately, THonC doesn't live up to that potential. The writing is fractured and hard to follow. The premise is also fractured and hard to follow: are Chester and gang fighting evil, facilitating scientific leaps, or just on a mad dash across the country in search of like-minded crazies? Ultimately I was left wondering if this book is meant to be fun or a religious/social commentary. Definitely not something the son would enjoy.
That being said, I must come to the defense of this book in one area. As a social commentary it caught my attention. Have y'all heard of the creep (not a creep, the creep)? `The creep' is what I call the quiet burrowing-in of previously unknown or unacceptable ideas into our common societal mentality. Some examples of the creep include the regularity of interracial dating/marriage, the acceptance of homosexuality, the burgeoning criticism of the overweight and the barely disguised hostility towards the Christian community. What once was taboo has, through quiet, consistent bombardment, become acceptable. While we weren't paying attention. Mr. Rains describes it perfectly as follows: "Imagine a country invades another country, and they win, and march in and change all the rules and blow up all the buildings. That would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it?" Chester had heard about this, and seen some bits of old war movies on TV. It did seem rather horrible. Auntie continued. "But imagine that there is no army, and there is no invasion, no millions of soldiers marching through the streets and firing cannons and blowing things up, but then things are changing anyways. Only nobody notices, because like we said, there is no army. But things are changing, and changing, and soon nobody remembers how it was and what they loved so much, so much that they would have fought a whole army to hold onto it before." Books are magic; even the bad ones have something to say.
I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
3421517
The premise for this book is great, but it didn't deliver for me. It was tedious to write. Poor narrative arc, so much backstory, felt like a draft of what could have been a very good novel.
101549
I thought this book was frustratingly vague. It didn't seem so much a way to force the reader to use his/her imagination as it did more a limited effort on the part of the author to tell a complete, coherent story. The endless descriptions were torpid. Worst of all, most scenes ended in a total cop-out. So, whatever they desperately needed, they just seemed to find, like the cache of food when they were starving. Huh? I guess it was just easier to finish the book that way. And the ending? This wonderful family just happened to be right there when the kid needed them? With the exception of a couple of scenes (the people in the basement or the fate of the mother, for example), it just wasn't very good. If that was truly the real world, the kid would have ended up as a catamite or someone's dinner.
368253
Obviously, with nine 5-star reviews, I am the odd reader out.  But even so, I cannot recommend this book.

I felt the beginning was not just slow, it was unbelievably slow.  We were given a hint of what would propel the protagonist to act as she did fairly quickly but then left hanging for pages and pages and even chapters before further attention was paid to what was supposed to be the triggering incident that set the story in motion.  And even then, the author so often ventured off into distracting side trips into her past that it was frustrating.

The other major problem I had with this novel was that I never connected with the protagonist.  She was not especially likable. She went off half-cocked on a mission to uncover 'the truth' of long-buried family secrets, against her mother's wishes and when her mother was perhaps a week from death--in a hospice facility, no less.  It was impossible to understand why her mission, which didn't seem that earth shaking, couldn't have waited.  Then, she proceeded to upset aging relatives. I found her not only heartless, but stupid--entering her aunt's empty house after her aunt ordered her to leave earlier and rummaging through personal documents while the aunt was gone?  Who does something like this??  And then to lead another man who was connected to the family by marriage years before to believe she would have sex with him in exchange for information, and take him to her hotel room? Good grief!  It wasn't as if she was on a mission to save the country from multiple nuclear bomb attacks!

As for the writing, I found it passable but far, far too heavy on description after description. The book also could have used tighter editing, which was not part of my decision to give only three stars.