Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not of her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore’s Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the older son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet, clumsy Ezra, Pearl’s favorite, who never stops yearning for the perfect family that could never be his own.
This insomniac's opinion:
Ugh. Just ugh. I did not enjoy this novel at all. It seemed as though nothing was happening and none of the characters were changing. Pearl starts mean and stays mean. Ezra is loveable and a little ignorant and never changes. Cody is self-absorbed and mean spirited from start to finish. You get my point- no one changes, learns a lesson, makes the reader reflect on life.... just nothing. It follows a family through years of benign, typical daily life. There is not a single character memorable enough for me to remember them long-term. I'll be honest: if this had not been a book club selection, I wouldn't have made it past chapter two. To give you an idea of the tone and pace of the book- let's imagine in our minds Ben Stein, the actor with the intentionally drab, monotone, slow-paced voice.Now, let's take this further and imagine him reading the telephone book. That pretty much sums the way I feel about this book,my friends.
Worth staying up all night to read?
No. In fact, it just may put you to sleep.
Rating: 2 stars, I didn't like it but the writing wasn't egregious enough to warrant 1 star.
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