Review of Going Coastal (Mass Market Paperback)

I loved this author's previous book Smothering.I was eagerly looking forward to this one.

Going Coastal is about our main character -working in a diner and hating it - or so she thinks.

Basically, this book is about finding yourself and what you truly love.There are many wacky characters as you would imagine in the diner and our main heroine has some hilarious interactions with most of them. The writing style is fun and breezy and although there is a "morale" to this story, the overeall tone is about being who you should be.

While this book wasn't as "sweet and innocent" as Smothering, I still enjoyed it thoroughly.Great chick lit reading.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Going Coastal (Mass Market Paperback)

Review of Up Through the Water (Paperback)

In this promising first novel, Steinke creates characters that are introspective and believable, an accomplishment in itself these days.Having vacationed at the outer banks of NC a number of times, I can tellyou that this work transports you there.Steinke is efficient and poeticin her use of language, and her plot is loosely framed on the cycles ofseason and life with the time worn metaphor of water as rejuvenationsomehow freshened through her young eye.

Product Description
Darcey Steinke's first novel, now back in print, is an unusually assured and lyrical debut. Set on an island resort town off North Carolina, it tells of summer people and islanders, mothers and sons, women and men, love and its dangers. It is the story of Emily, a woman free as the waves she swims in every day, of the man who wants to clip her wings, of her son and the summer that he will become a man. George Garrett called it "clean-cut, lean-lined, quickly moving, and audacious. . . . [Steinke is] compassionate without sentimentality, romantic without false feelings, and clearly and extravagantly gifted." "Beautifully written . . . a seamless and almost instinctive prose that often reads more like poetry than fiction." -- Robert Olmstead New York Times Book Review; "Dazzling and charged . . . Darcey Steinke has the sensuous and precise visions of female and male, and of the light and dark at the edge of the sea." -- John Casey.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Up Through the Water (Paperback)

Review of Self-Help (Paperback)

Lorrie Moore has long been a favorite writer of mine.Her short fiction, which has appeared regularly in THE NEW YORKER and elsewhere, is unbeatable.Her humor is sharp, her descriptive powers awesome, and her stories (almost) always feel as though they actually go somewhere.

One of the best pieces in "Self-Help" is probably the first Lorrie Moore piece I ever read."Self-Help" was published the year I graduated from college, and I think a college friend gave me a copy of "How to Become a Writer."Note the "become" instead of "be."Moore acknowledges the process involved in writing and lets her readers know that writers are not sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus or anyone else.Listen to this beautifully assured, resonant, yet hilarious passage from "How to Become a Writer":

"First, try to be something, anything, else.A movie star/astronaut.A movie star/missionary.A movie star/kindergarten teacher.President of the World.Fail miserably.It is best if you fail at an early age--say, fourteen.Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire.It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain.Count the syllables.Show it to your mom.She is tough and practical.She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair.She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots.She'll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut.She'll say: 'How about emptying the dishwasher?'Look away.Shove the forks in the fork drawer.Acccidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses.This is the required pain and suffering.This is only for starters."

Moore likes to do that--throw in references like Vietnam, then spin things around a little so that it comes out funny.One of my favorite Lorrie Moore bits had to do with a woman who said something awful before she could stop herself--Moore described the blurted insult as being "a lizard with a hat on."Wacko as that sounds, you still know exactly what she means.That is her great gift--she makes life sound wacko and off-kilter, but you completely, utterly GET IT anyway.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Self-Help (Paperback)

Review of A Secret Word: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm not one to write reviews for books, not even those I really like, but I feel compelled to weigh in on A SECRET WORD. I read it weeks ago and told my sisters and my mother and some friends at work about it, telling them that they would have to read it, and some have, and those who did loved it, too. But what I have to weigh in on is its remarkable story, or plot, which couldn't be more energized or more thorough in its representation of all aspects of female life, or maybe all life in general really. Between the plotlines of the three main characters, we've got two tragic deaths (one accidental, one intentional), a multitude of failed love affairs, love-at-first sight, a good marriage, a bad marriage, divorce, mother/daughter relationships, father/daughter relationships, brother/sister relationships, girlfriend friendships, a gay guy/straight girl friendship, drug use, rock 'n roll, tennis, dance, acting, abortion, depression, 9-11, and countless coming-of-age situations that are immensely funny or sad and always memorable and inspirational and which occur in locales as diverse as Florence, Italy; Destin, Florida; Washington, D.C.; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and New York, NY. Yet, somehow, with all this activity and diversity, the plotlines merge and develop in subtle ways that some readers, if they read too fast, won't be able to appreciate. If you're wanting to race through this book, and think you can or you should because it isn't long and because the language is clear and conversational, be warned: you will be missing out on much beauty, much music, much art, much real life. Be good to yourself, is my advice, and take in everything. If you race through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you might think a Monet is just a simple blur of color and not much else. This book, I assure you, deserves either to be read slowly or to be reread. I opted, incidentally, to do both.



Click Here to see more reviews about: A Secret Word: A Novel (Paperback)