Pictures of You by Caroline LeavittMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Until the last forty pages or so, I adored this book. Just LOVED it. Then it went to hell in a hand basket. 280 pages of brilliance, heart, and marvelous characters ended with 40 pages of unsatisfying, if strictly realistic, compromise. Yes, that's life, but I don't read novels to get another heaping helping of what I can get by walking out my front door in the morning. I like a little magic, and a happy ending can be accomplished without tying everything up in a neat bow, which I realize the author was trying, admirably, to avoid.
My other gripe with the ending is that there is a sudden, and to me, jarring twenty year lurch into the future, where everybody's a wonderful doctor, and they eat arugula, and adopt little Chinese children. I was dead certain this would be a five star book for me, and I was wondering why most of the ratings at Goodreads were threes and fours. Now I know. I feel like I met a handful of really fascinating, well-written, very human and complex characters that I cared a lot about, only to have them fade into Lifetime Movie Land at the end. What a gyp.
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I hate when that happens. I think endings are very difficult for some writers. (Look at George RR Martin--he obviously can't figure out how to end Game of Thrones, so he just keeps killing people off and making new ones.)
ReplyDeleteReally like what you've done with your sidebar, also.
I guess I WON'T run out and buy this book, eh?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Hedgewitch has read George RR Martin's Fevre Dream? It's one of my favorite books, and I think it has a satisfying ending...Not in the same vein as his "Thrones" series, but a brilliant book, in my opinion...
I hate when that happens!
ReplyDeleteI hate it when books let you down like that. You invest your time and emotion into characters only to have the bottom drop out in the most unsatisfying way. I find that a lot of Stephen King books end up like that, but his most recent efforts have gotten better.
ReplyDeleteOuch! Tell us how you really feel, Shay.
ReplyDeleteLove your side bar prompts.
thanks for taking it on the chin for us ...
ReplyDeleteI don't read novels to get another heaping helping of what I can get by walking out my front door in the morning.
ReplyDeleteSame for me!
I'm sorry this was such a disappointment to you. And, yes, I also hate jumps in the future...