Somebody hold me? Something horrible has slithered over my grave. ANN-MARIE! YOU FREAK MY SHIT OUT! I don't even feel capable of linking words to other words.Also, I feel sub-standard. Ann-Marie MacDonald is one of the most blindingly talented authors I've ever read, and if she didn't hook her engine to the Creepy Caboose she might get more air time. BUT THEN I WOULD NOT LOVE HER SO MUCH!
*breathes* Ok, Madeleine is an army brat, and she, along with her rascally older brother and their attractive and loving parents Jack and Mimi have moved to Centralia, Canada. And everything is sweetness and light until the little girl's teacher starts keeping girls after school for dirty deeds. CAUTIONARY WHALE there is some child abuse here, and it is difficult to read.
Oh, and also, Jack's old army buddy phones him up and asks him to do a leetle favor. Something to do with sheltering a Communist defector (did I mention that this is during the Cold War? And that in Soviet Russia, crows fly you?). A favor that he has to keep secret from his superiors. And his wife. Totally this isn't going to be a big deal, right?
Halfway through, Joel's all How's your book coming? And I'm all, The worst things are happening to all the best people. EVERYTHING GOES WRONG FOR EVERYBODY! And parts of it you see coming and are powerless to stop, and parts of it sneak up on you and you're all, NO!!!! Ctrl-Z!!
And do I think that the last 200 or so pages could have been pruned, epilogued, or cut off altogether? Mayhaps. Do I think that Fall On Your Knees is the better book, and that you should read that one first? Yes, but not by a long shot. Did I run out and buy TWTCF immediately after finishing it, so that I could have my own copy in case anyone wanted to borrow a beautifully depressing/bizarrely heart-lifting book in the next few day? You bet your sweet ass.
Nine caterpillars.
That Yakov-Smirnoff-as-pure-gibberish joke is the funniest thing I've read all week.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, right, You say you're "reading books so I don't have to" and then you go and write a review that makes it freakin' impossible to not at this author to my wish list. Crap, now I've gotta place another Amazon order. I hope you're happy.....( :o) )
ReplyDeleteoops...I meant "add this author"... not "at this author".....
ReplyDelete*sigh...I think I just did the writing equivalent of storming out of room, slamming the door and finding myself in a closet......sort of lost the whole dramatic sarcasm thing I had going.......*sigh...(what a schmuck I am....)
Ctrl-Z. Brilliant. Wish I'd thought of that. I'll be thinking of that all day. And thanks for saying I should read Fall on Your Knees. It's in my TBR pile. Woot!
ReplyDeleteI loved Fall on Your Knees, so I am definitely going to have to check this out.
ReplyDeleteI checked out the info of The Way The Crow Flies on amazon and it made it seem as though it was a follow up to Fall On Your Knees. Did I misunderstand or can I read TWTCF first and FOYK after?
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with the author at all, but your review has definitely piqued my interest!!
I've read both her books - great writer, but not upbeat to say the least. I think I remember thinking the same thing about the last couple hundred pages of TWTCF.
ReplyDeleteMy cousin passed this on to me last month, so yay, I finally read a review that doesn't make my tbr pile even bigger! Now if I could just get around to reading it so the tbr pile will get smaller.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely putting this (and Fall on Your Knees) on my TBR pile. Great review!
ReplyDeleteGreat review! It sounds like something that would be a hard to read, and I don't usually read books with child abuse in them. So I'll probably pass on this one, but I enjoyed reading your opinion.
ReplyDeleteYou're the first person I know who's given this book a good review! Maybe I'll check it out, having also adored Fall On Your Knees.
ReplyDeleteMy friend, Ed, has an expression for something that sneaks up on you and catches you totally unprepared-waiting in the tall grass, as in: parts of it you see coming and are powerless to stop, and parts of it are waiting for you in the tall grass.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but Chartroose's recent review is also on my mind, and I've been dying to use that phrase somewhere.