The Dive From Clausen's Pier

Rating:
Summary: Bestseller? WHY!?
Review: This book was so amazingly bland that I can't accurately describe my feelings for it. Through the entire book I found myself hoping to finish it so that I could put it aside and start another, more interesting book. I have never in my life disliked a main character as much as I disliked Carrie Bell.

She was selfish, pure and simple. When her best friend and fiance broke his neck in a diving accident, she ran off to New York and began making something of her life. She began following her dreams and exploring her emotions. In New York, unlike her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, she was known to care about people every now and then. Be happy every now and then. In Madison, she cared about no one, least of all herself. She abandoned her friends and her fiance.

I have absolutely no idea how she could feel so numb towards someone who was not only her lover, but her friend. The whole book amazed me. There were no surpises. No plot twists. No caring for the character. I was more interested in the tale of her friends than her own tale. It's like watching an interesting movie through a very bland character's eyes.

I will never again trust the New York Times Bestseller list.

Rating:
Summary: CHARACTERS ARE AWFUL
Review: I didn't care a hoot about the selfish main character and was not impressed with Packer's writing style. Not well written and characters not well thought out and BORING>

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully captivating
Review: Carrie has lived her entire life in the same small town, surrounded by the same friends, and dating the same guy for 8 years. Suddenly, she finds her life stifling, and wonders if there's something more. When her fiancée has a horrible accident and becomes paralyzed, Carrie finds herself unable to cope. The book deals with the question of how much we owe those we love... and whether we should sacrifice ourselves for them.

There were so many reasons I loved this book. Simply put, though, I loved Carrie. I put myself in her shoes throughout the entire book. It was hard not to think of myself as her as I read. I also loved the writing style - simple, yet beautiful. The descriptions were artful and captivating.

To be honest, the only thing I disliked about this beautiful novel was the ending. I felt frustrated by Carrie's choice at the end of the novel, and that's the only thing keeping me from giving this book a perfect score and adding it to my permanent collection. Every now and again I also found myself a little annoyed by the abrupt endings in chapter sections. I wanted to know more about a specific dinner party, or class Carrie was taking, or lovemaking session, and they'd often be cut short.

Overall, this is a wonderfully captivating book. It pulls you in from the first few pages and never lets go.

Rating:
Summary: The Dive from Clausen¿s Pier
Review: As many reviewers have stated 'THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER' started off well. It was easy to read with a promising story line, however, somewhere not too far into the book, the main character, Carrie started to become very unlikable. It made you wonder if you were supposed to feel sorry for her and her situation or everyone around her that she was so clearly hurting.

Carrie is twenty-three years old and has been with her fiancé since she was fifteen. Despite the fact that this should be the happiest time of her life, she is feeling very suffocated having been with the same man for the last eight years, having the same group of friends since elementary school and having lived in the same small Wisconsin town her entire life. But when the unthinkable happens one Memorial Day weekend and Mike Carrie's fiancé becomes paralyzed from the neck down and she is forced to suppress her feelings to flee and be there for Mike. Until one day when she does just that. Carrie packs her bags in the middle of the night and heads straight for New York City without as much as a note to her mother, best friend Jamie, or Mike.

Once in New York Carrie tries to start a whole new life for herself but it seems that all she does is recreate her old one in a new city. She moves into a brownstone with an old high school friend, immediately starts a relationship with an older man (whom she met at dinner party back in her hometown) that completely consumes her. She does not get a job or do anything to give her a new sense of independence she just latches on to her new beau and feels sorry for herself about what she'd done, but makes absolutely no effort to resolve it.

Overall 'THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER' is not nearly as bad as many reviewers have stated but certainly not as praiseworthy as many other reviewers have stated. Packers writing style is very easy to read and the story did keep me wondering how everything would turn out. Unfortunately, the main characters selfishness, I believe, is a major turn off to many readers...it certainly was for me.

Rating:
Summary: The world through an unaware person's eyes
Review: I had high hopes for this book, but was dissapointed. The lead character appeared to be skimming along through life, and I found myself reading the book much the same way hoping for something to catch my attention.

Rating:
Summary: Am I alone out here?
Review: This book was chosen, unread, by a member of our book group. When the selector finished reading it she called several of the other members saying she hated this book, disliked the graphic, gratuitious, soap-opera-sex style of writing. She disliked the characters, finding no one who seemed authentic. She made the statement, "I chose the worst book in our 4 years of meeting."

When she made her calls, it was to find out that only 3 out of ten even continued reading the book to the end and all unanimously agreed with her assessment. This group is a cross section of ages, experience and all are extremely well educated and have great tolerance for lives different from our own. However, we found the writing lacking in "elegant prose", and couldn't identify with anyone on any level. Cardboard characters with real concerns but only cardboard solutions to those concerns.

Please tell me the "Young readers" mentioned in editorial reviews won't buy the media hype. This book is schlock.

Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfying Angst
Review: This was a strange novel that meandered its way to the finish, which ended with a sigh rather than shout. Carrie was such a weak character that I found myself rolling my eyes half the book.

And I thought this novel would be about empowerment, but instead she ends up sacrificing her dreams for a guy. This particular guy doesn't even seem to care about her hopes and dreams, even though he says he loves her.

This book started with promise, but it sputtered at the end.

Rating:
Summary: I'd Rate it 2.5, but don't have the option.
Review: By half way through "The Dive..", I was just biding time, waiting for things to wrap up so I could move on.
It seems like a kid's book, a coming of age story better recommended to younger, 20 something readers, but not containing enough depth or texture for a more mature reader with some life experience.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, original.
Review: Carrie Bell was faced with a choice - she can stay with the quadrapalegic fiancee that she had been thinking about breaking up with before his accident, or she can leave. She chooses to leave and for that she has to face the consequences of emotional guilt from her friends and from herself. I liked this book because it made me think about Carrie's situation and what I would have done. I'm a 20-something female myself, and to wonder if the situation Carrie was in is something that I could have handled well at 23, I think not. It's a very engrossing book which I ripped through in 2 days. *I obviously don't work!* I was very satisfied when it was over with and would recommend it to all my friends...

Rating:
Summary: Thin Characters, Excessive Detail, Plodding Pace
Review: This was a tough one to get through. The book is overloaded with unimportant details that the narrator observes (this is supposedly part of her characterization) but it doesn't add much to the novel. Perfectly mundane actions (both in the description and what's described) like making tea, sewing, etc., are described in unremarkable, excruciating detail.

Also, we're given access to the narrator's thought processes in terms of sewing or fashion choices, but hardly ever on things that really matter. Thus, the reader gets a cheaply-wrought sense of surprise because despite all the narrator's internal chatter, the reader has no clue about who the narrator is. Perhaps this is intentional, a book about a character's lack of self-knowledge and the avoidance of painful topics, but the author's use of detail is too scattershot to make much of an impact.

Many of the plotlines and characters are underdeveloped. Her mother is a therapist, but I don't get any sense of that in any of their interactions. Simon is supposedly her closest (platonic) friend in New York and yet he fades out of the book. The narrator leaves town without a word, rarely contacts her crippled fiance over the months she is gone, and yet her fiance seems strangely accepting of her behavior.

This is supposed to be a realistic meditation on issues of self-determination versus community expectations, but it just doesn't add up.