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Summary: just one of many to fall for conroy's style
Review: there is inevitably something about this latest novel which gives it the sickly-sweet guiltiness that comes from eating too much chocolate. Conroy never fails to play it big and over-the-top schmaltzy, yet his writing is so lyrical and his characters and plots so involving and unfailingly interesting that it just works. beautiful, you know it's deliberately written to yank the heartstrings and you let it.
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Summary: Amazing
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Beach Music, although parts of the story were hard to handle. I cant imagine being 13 and reading it; at 18, I was terrified to tears in the mountains with AJ Dillard. Still, it was written beautifully, the words themselves flowed like poetry in some places. The story was incredible. I was impressed. :)
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Summary: This book was one of the best i have read
Review: This book kept me entertained til the last page. I am not a big book reader, but it was surely one of the best i have ever read. THough it had many older comments, i am thirteen, and i understood all of them. The one thing i enjoyed most about it is the charactors, the way they made you think about them after you put down the book, and it wasn't just the main charactor that made you think that way, the little ones...they are the ones that caught you eye. I recommend this book to anyone over the age of twelve.
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Summary: Half good half bad
Review: Unfortunetly I have to agree with many reviewers here. I got a terrible sense reading Beach Music that this was the same thing all over again. Jack McCall was a whinning baby who should really grow up and get over himself. Many of the characters in the story are reall overblown and not needed. As for some passages in the book serve no point whatsoever but to shock. What I did like in the book was the depiction of the Holocaust that was a real eye opener. Though I was more than a little DISPLEASED at Mr. Conroy asserting that the Holocaust was the fault of Christians (I beg your pardon?) in Europe. I liked the passages about Jordon he was great. And the real goings on during the 1960's was good too. But in all this novel was more bad than good. A bit too aimless. Mr. Conroy needs to get to the point of his stories like he did in The Lords of Discipline a favorite of mine. Let's just hope that he gives us something more original next time around.
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Summary: A book of struggles.............
Review: A definite tear to the eye at the end of that one A book of struggles............. Just as the turtle faces extinction and struggles to survive, so does each character in the book....and the turtle that appears to be dead, does in fact survive..... as soon as he is returned to his home...returned to the water that he needs..... he 'magically' comes back to life. .....with the music of the sea flowing through his body.......happy to be home. Jack also came alive as he returned home to his family....home to the music.........just as the ocean's tide pulled the turtle in, the tide, the family "tie" pulled Jack south....... toward home......Sort of ironic how the death of Shyla pushed him away but the death of his mother brought him back...... the tide.... back and forth...in and out....coming and going.....the whole book is like that...... going from past to present, to past, to present.......... characters....happy, sad, happy, sad, happy...... From emotional highs, to lows, and back to highs..........The only character without a struggle is Leah..... Jack's daughter..... she is the only one swiming in the ocean, riding the waves without a past......listening to the music without a memory..... But the music is not only from the ocean.....the music is from Jack and Shyla's favorite song..... The book opening and closing with that same song in the background..... Dancing together as they fell in love......and just as the beach house was torn apart, their lives were torn apart as she struggled internally with her past and ended her present.......... Although, in the end, still dancing together in his dreams..... she will always be part of him........ and eventually the last dance will be theirs together....... He truely loved her....... but struggled with the meaning of the word "love" throughout his life.......Sadly, I wish she would have recognized all of it before she jumped....And it makes me sad that the love within him was unearthed only by his dying mother....... the last words from his mother giving him direction...... showing him that the meaning of love was not words but actions..... The book should have stopped there....... It's conclusion in Rome with the southern wedding between two old friends....Jack and LaDare..........was a false ending.....to some it may appear happy........But mostly, it was a very sad story with a very sad ending.
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Summary: Outstanding emotional summary of USC campus life ca. 1970
Review: Pat Conroy reminds me of the professor who taught me Advanced Grammar at USC back during my senior year. His anecdotal introduction to the class was "If you came in here looking for a seminar in semicolon, you're in the wrong class." He proceeded to make the English language come alive by describing all the rich history of the the costal dialects: especially gullah. The most intriguing element of the novel is Conroy's development of the true emotional realism of events on and off campus before, during and after the 1970 campus disturbances. The characters (particularly the 'Aware' members) were as familiar as my old worn Shakespeare text. Jack Ashley would have been delighted to read this novel in all its contovoluted complexity. It serves as an epic for those of us who grew up during the sixties and graduated around 1971.
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Summary: One Word -- Captivating
Review: This book captured & kept my attention despite the wide of variety of subjects touched. Conroy has utilized his gift of writing to create a story that touches everyone who reads it. If you're looking for history, politics, passion, humor, violence, love, relationships, geography (I think you get the picture), then Beach Music is the book for you.
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Summary: A book for ANY adult reader.
Review: If you come from a family, if you've ever had a friend, an enemy, a seedy love affair, an abusive father, a suicidal wife, a brain...you'll relate to, and adore, this novel. It is cleverly packed with an abundant range of historical, general, emotional, and unbelievable events. If you're one of those people who weeps within the last forty pages of a good book, knowing that it's bound to end soon, this one will satisfy! Everything is so well resolved, you can close this saga with a sigh, a smile, and a tear-stained face. It's almost edible! Happy reading!!!
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Summary: This is a wonderful narration of impossible relationships.
Review: Every impossible relationship, mother/son; father/son; brother/brother; father/daughter; husband/wife; mother/daughter; father/girlfriends; child/father's girlfriend...they're all resolved and everyone lives happily ever after. This book makes you feel good about everyone. Thanks, Mr. Conroy.
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Summary: Beautiful!
Review: This was one of the best books I have ever read. It is written beautifully and the characters are beleivable. The narration of Jack and his friends as they grew up together brought back old memories of my childhood and high school years. The relationships between these characters and the experiences they go through will strike a chord in your heart, and the ending of the novel will make you cry. The book reads like an autobiography of Jack McCall, and every aspect of his life is fascinating. You will not be able to put this one down easily.
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