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Title: Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner ISBN: 0-14-200040-X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: READ THIS BOOK!
Comment: This book was an absolute delight to read. It has the innocence and laugh-out-loud humor of a child's perpective.
From the intelligently quirky mother to Warty, the self-appointed caretaker of the city dump, all of the characters ring true. And after just a few sentences Gildiner has you feeling like you really know them.
And then there's the main character, the author as a child, who basically grew up in her father's drug store. It's a miracle she lived long enough, given her adventures and attitude, to write the book. Lucky for us she did.
Each chapter is a short-story unto itself, a la Jean Shepherd. And there just aren't enough of them. After 350 pages you're left feeling cheated because there aren't 350 more.
Read this book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Superb beginning, but a nosedive at the end...
Comment: The author's engaging style and an endearing cast of characters make this one of the best memoirs I've read in a long time. Her family's eccentricities (eating every meal at restaurants, seven days a week) had me laughing aloud at times, while tales of ordinary people struggling with their human frailties make the story especially poignant. The author is skilled in building the reader's sense of righteous indignation over various injustices that occur along the way, often in connection with her religious education. I was so caught up in the book that I recommended it to several friends. Unfortunately, the story line took a nosedive toward the end. The author's reminiscences about the romantic entanglements of a young priest assigned to teach her religion class just don't ring true to me. Perhaps I'm not in the best position to judge this, as I'm not Catholic and did not attend Catholic school, but the idea of a young priest taking a 15-year-old girl on a romantic dinner date and plying her with wine till she gets drunk seems pretty far-fetched to me, especially in that day and age. As the scene played on, I kept expecting to find that it was a dream or daytime reverie, and that the the author would return us eventually to the real world. Even if the story is true, the tone she sets in the previous chapters doesn't prepare the reader for this turn of events. The promise of the book's beginning falls flat, and the ending comes so abruptly that it seems as if she just couldn't figure out any other way to finish up. Nonetheless, she is an extraordinarily talented writer with enchanting stories to tell, embellished or not, and I hope to see new works from her in the future.
Rating: 5
Summary: It would be perfect for your book group
Comment: Oh, what a yummy treat! This was my era, too: childhood in the 50s, a time when men worked and learned to barbecue, woman baked and played bridge, and children ran free in a world that was threatened by Communism from without but was seen as safe from within. Of course, all is not as safe as it appeared - but that doesn't dilute the hilarity of this tale. A coming-of-age memoir by a gifted story-teller, Too Close to the Falls is told in the child's voice - her world seen through her eyes - but as a microcosm of a larger world with dark woods and threating waterfalls at the edges.
Don't miss it. Read it, laugh, think about it more deeply, then share it with a friend.
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Title: The Lemon Jelly Cake (Prairie State Book Series) by Madeline Babcock Smith, Dan Guillory ISBN: 0252061632 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: A Schoolteacher in Old Alaska : The Story of Hannah Breece by Hannah Breece ISBN: 0679776338 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Jew Store by Stella Suberman ISBN: 1565123301 Publisher: Algonquin Books Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Bad Blood : A Memoir by Lorna Sage ISBN: 0060938080 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Housewrights by Art Corriveau ISBN: 0142002097 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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