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Title: Shy Girl by Elizabeth Stark ISBN: 0374263523 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: July, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2
Rating: 3
Summary: All right, but not what I'd hoped for
Comment: While there's no doubt that Shy Girl is well-written and, at times, compelling, ultimately I was disappointed. I found the character of Alta an annoying caricature of an SF butch, and the gratuitous sex scenes and references to the dyke S/M scene distracting and contrived. I do think the portrait sketched of Shy is a profound one, though, and I also liked the way Stark conveyed the horrors of the Holocaust, relaying emotion without being either cliched or overly Spielberg-esque; I wish she'd started with the exploration of this theme earlier in the novel, along with gradually disclosing more information about Alta's mother. This book has a lot of potential, but I felt that its zenith was never reached, as is the case with too much contemporary lesbian fiction.
Rating: 5
Summary: Read Shy Girl -- not the reviews! Save the mystery!
Comment: Elizabeth Stark's novel is a fast read that is compelling and beautifully written. Hang onto the mystery -- and see how much we are alike -- and how our differences still are more accentuated and divisive than honored! The context of this novel is a MUST for the message. The author pulls the reader in -- and holds on! If you can't read this -- ask yourself why not and then finish it for the answer! Most of all, don't read the reviews (like the ones printed above!) that give the mystery away. You'll love it anyway, but will miss the ironic twist that Stark so eloquently delivers.
Rating: 3
Summary: now for a review with a different point of view...
Comment: I'm constantly on the lookout for queer novels that are very well written -- novels that are powerful and real and don't rely on carricature of LGBT folks, and that are also showcases for finely crafted, elegant and powerful text. I had high hopes for this novel, especially since I had seen quite a few glowing reviews of it before I read it -- shortly after it was published.
But, unlike the other reviewers here, I was very disappointed. The plot of this novel has a great deal of potential, and much of the book is fairly well written. The message is an important one. But I found much of the writing to be contrived, the dialogue especially so -- to the point, even, that the dialogue itself became quite a distraction to me. I wanted so much to let these characters come to life, and yet they moved so stiffly that I could hardly get them to flicker on the page. And the message seemed to be forced -- as another reveiwer said, the author just seemed to be trying too hard to be profound.
This is a successful novel in so many ways, but perhaps not the literary phenom that it has been billed as. I'd like to see more women-written queer novels that are as powerful in their delivery as those by Michael Cunningham and Dale Peck (for instance). For me, Shy Girl just came up short by quite a few ways.
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Title: Girl Walking Backwards by Bett Williams ISBN: 0312194560 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Substitute for Love by Karin Kallmaker ISBN: 1562802658 Publisher: Naiad Pr Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Annie on My Mind (Aerial Fiction) by Nancy Garden ISBN: 0374404143 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (Juv) Pub. Date: September, 1992 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Some Girls by Kristin McCloy ISBN: 0452272734 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Mirrors by Marianne K. Martin ISBN: 1931513023 Publisher: Bella Books Pub. Date: 15 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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