unabridgedchick's reviews
1395 reviews

I don't know how historically accurate this novel is, but I really enjoyed it. It read quickly and the main character, Barbara Palmer, seemed true to her time rather than a modern woman plunked in Restoration-era England. In fact, despite being a hard woman to like at times, I liked her and felt sadness at the end -- the novel had a delicious, bittersweet note of ending which was great.

I didn't realise this was a prequel or I might not have picked it up; perhaps had I read the first novel I would have cared more. However, all three main characters were unappealing and unlikeable. The sapphic relationship between the two women was trite and unnecessary.

A passionate, endearing, and engrossing autobiography. Who doesn't recall food from their childhood with pain and affection? Stories are interspersed with recipes (delicious ones, too, having made a few myself!) and it feels like you're sitting down with Ms Abu-Jaber at her dining table, listening to her chat as she cooks.

Did I like this book? Maybe?

I couldn't stand reading her yet I couldn't stop. The writing is amazing: her characters are fascinating and repulsive; at times, I felt sympathetic toward them, even when they said or did horrifying things. At times I would say I hated this book, and then rave about it for ten minutes. I'm still not sure if I 'enjoyed' it, but I certainly was challenged.

I was reminded a bit of Doris Lessing and Djuna Barnes.

One-sentence summary: Strange, slightly-surreal short stories in the vein of Aimee Bender.

Why did you get this book?: The title, I think.

Do you like the cover?: Yes, if I didn't look too closely at the bug.

Did you enjoy the book?: Yes. Ish. In every story, I would find myself enthralled and then irritated, enthralled again, then disappointed. And yet, in the end, I enjoyed most of the stories. "Cleopatra Brimstone" and "The Least Trumps" were my favorites.

Hearing that this book made the 2005 James Tiptree, Jr. Award short list, I was curious. Bender's writing fascinates and horrifies me; I have a love/hate thing for her novel An Invisible Sign of My Own. I've heard that short stories are her forte, so I was uber-curious about this collection. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

What is gripping about these stories is the simple, quiet horror that steals across the pages. What can I say that everyone hasn't said before? Each story left me with a sick sinking in my stomach; you know what is coming and you can't avert your eyes. And if you don't know, if you can't imagine, you are trapped reading to the end until you find out exactly how awful it will be. After finishing this volume, I had to stop reading for a few days. I didn't want to keep the feeling but I didn't want to let it go, not exactly. I had to sit with it, remember the stories a few more times, then walk away, uneasy.

This dry, clever novel is a rambling lecture by a man obsessed with the art of conversation. Peppered in his outrageous speech are little hints that his life is murkier than we realize; by the end, I felt chilled and amused. A slim but dense novel.

I found The White Palazzo less enjoyable than Cooney's newer [b:A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies|389803|A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies|Ellen Cooney|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21uEqXbUPSL._SL75_.jpg|379419]. The book feels like a poorly conceived chick flick: everyone was A Character. Quirkiness abounds, but not in a fun way. In a rather aggravating, no-one-could-really-live-like-this sort of way.

Tara is young, pretty, preternaturally lucky, and let's not forget, quirky! For a series of ridiculous and random reasons, Tara leaves her male fiancee and disappears. Local, older psychic Signora Guida is hired to find her. In the end, Guida finds Tara (in more than one way) and in the quirky manner of quirky people, they fall wildly in love and move in together. This was a quick read--started and finished before noon on a Saturday.

Ellen Cooney is a local author--her books are set in Boston or Eastern Massachusetts. I love place as a character, and selfishly, I love reading about Boston. Cooney's A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies is set in the early 20th century, and details the goings-on of a Beacon Hill brothel (for women!).

Red-headed Charlotte married into a rich New England family and succumbed to a mysterious malaise that kept her bedridden for years. Stepping out one winter day, she catches her husband passionately embracing another woman, and without a word, she rides off to Boston. She is saved only by a series of potential improbably coincidences--at every turn, she runs into someone who knows her, owes her, or wants her. She ends up at The Beechmont: A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies and discovers her true self.

At moments wildly fun, others very predictable. I was underwhelmed by the ending.

I know other readers disliked the book for it's unlikeable characters but I rather found Hatty, Martyn, and 'Agnes' realistic. I know couples like them, and au pairs like Agnieszka, and even though I suspected some of the plot twists, the final conclusion had me shocked and a little shaken (in a good way!). The device of the great-grandmother as narrator is lovely, as she provides some parallels to the main triad, ruminations on the nature of relationships, parenthood, and partnership. A very dark, twisted novel!