Tom Rachman
The Imperfectionists chronically the lives of the journalists working for an American News Paper in Rome. Each story follows a different person as they work, play, mourn and more often then not contemplate a life outside of journalism. The stories themselves are connected by two or three pages at the end of each chapter that show the progress of the paper from a chance to be close to a former love, to a financial almost success, to it's failure.
I've been struggling with this review for a few days. I like The Imperfectionists, but I think a lot of my enjoyment was more centered around it being my first e-book then on the stories I was reading. The chapter/story titles were intriguing, and often the thing i was looking most forward to.
I'm starting to really have a problem with collections of short stories being marketed as novels. Just by putting in a few pages of back story after a completely unrelated chapter doesn't give you a novel. In fact the back story with the Ott group completely put me off. There wasn't enough time devoted to it in the beginning to really care about it, then I just came to dread there irrelevant appearance.
It's not that I didn't like The Imperfectionists, it's just that I liked it just enough for it not to be mediocre. I don't usually give out real ratings, but if I did, this is a perfect example of 3.5 stars. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but it left me with nothing, not a character to haunt me, or a storyline to continue to think about. I put my kindle down and was done.
8 comments:
This one's on my wish list (though I can't remember why I put it there) but it sounds kind of disappointing. The best books are the ones that you mull over for days afterwards!
Hmm, interesting review! It's always disappointing to finish a book and not feel anything afterward.
Sorry, this did not work out well for you.
There has been a lot of buzz about this book, and yet the reviews reflect disappointed readers. A hodge-podge structure like what you described is my greatest annoyance, so maybe I'll give this a miss.
Bummer, The Perfectionists looked very interesting. I didn't realize it was short stories, which I'm not a huge fan of, so I think I'll delete this from my wish list. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the book but thanks for your honest review.
This is a very good review. I totally know what you mean when you say that it is just better than mediocre. I've reviewed a lot of books like that, and when I read a review that has that description I am definitely inclined to stay away from the book. I've heard a lot of other people that were disappointed with this book as well. Maybe it's a case of too much undeserved hype. I'm also not sure how I feel about short story collections being marketed as novels. I love short stories, but I'm not quite sure that the two forms are really that interchangeable. I haven't read enough books in that format to be really sure, but it seems like it might lend itself to structural problems.
This is kind of how I felt about Oscar Wao despite others really loving it. I'm going to read this one soon since it just came out in paperback. It's nice to read a realistic review of it.
I gave you an award over at my blog if you want to check it out:
http://hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com/2011/01/long-overdue.html
Wow. I've had this on my TBR for some time and had no idea it was a SS collection.
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