Sunday, August 25, 2013

Goldengrove - Francine Prose

This book takes its title from a poem I loved when I was younger and had put down in a book in which I'd handwrite poems I liked. I had sort of forgotten about the poem to be honest, and then seeing it on the page instantly reminded me of how much I liked it, and now that I'm (much) older, I see more in it than I did when I was younger, etc.

I can't transfer the way I feel about the poem to the way I feel about this book, unfortunately. It wasn't awful or anything, but... One of the many things I crammed into this summer was a writing class. I think I'm an decent judge of what constitutes poor writing in general, but this class has really made me more aware of things like a critique I have of this book - the narrator is supposed to be a 13 year old girl, but sounds like an adult. In addition, the characters all sounded very similar to me, despite differences in age, etc. Having now brushed with attempted writing myself, I know it's difficult to write dialogue and have that dialogue "sound" different for different speakers, etc., but as a beginner I give myself more slack than with experienced, published authors. So I have mixed feelings about this book. Sorry I can't be more definitive on this one!

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