Rating: 
Summary: Maybe I can write a book too!
Review: If this is what it takes to win the National Book Award maybe I can write a book too! I found Charming Billy boring and confusing. Not only was the story line weak, the characters were flat. I did not find Ms McDermotts prose poetic nor her Billy charming. Instead, I found myself flipping the pages back and forth trying to figure out who was speaking and to whom and why did McDermott give some of the character the same name. I found the trail of unrelated little stories boring and pointless. Why did we have to know about Dennis'grandmother or that Billy wrote notes on napkins? Who cares? And the fact that Billy returned from Ireland after finding out Eva is alive and did NOT have a major confrontation or discussion with Dennis was unbelievable!! What was the point of shifting all over the place in time? Someone in an earlier review used the word "annoying". Yes, I too was annoyed the entire time I was reading this book. I was annoyed that I paid $10 for it and couldn't wait to finish it. I was annoyed that such a book as Charming Billy could receive such a prestigious award. Don't waste your time or money. It truly makes me wonder "just what is the criteria for good literature?" If one of my students had written this and submitted it, I would have suggested some major REVISION!!
Rating: 
Summary: A testatment to getting the most out of life.
Review: I thought this was a terrific book. I didn't mind the time shifting; I think McDermott does a wonderful job conveying the joys and sorrows of everyday life. I thought the book was really as much about Dennis, Billy's cousin, as it is about Billy, and about how Dennis makes the best of his life. Billy's celebrated for his undying romantic view of life,but it's Dennis who gets past the sentiment and learns to get the most out of life. This is a book in which just a few choice sentences can convey so much about the characters.
Rating: 
Summary: This book has to be better than this to get an award!!!!
Review: "Charming Billy" was not worth the wait I endured to get it. Oprah must be losing her marbles to recommend some of her recent books. This book took me forever to read, and I'm a very fast reader. I could hardly wait to finish it and take it back!!!
Rating:
Summary: Dull-dull-dull
Review: I am an avid reader and rarely do not finish what I begin reading. I began this book with a very open mind, but mid-way could not go any further. One of the few 'wish I had never purchased' books I have obtained. May appeal to some, but I had a very hard time becoming interested. Characters hard to follow; a lot of skipping around without explanation.
Rating:
Summary: "That, my dear, is called reading!"
Review: I won't disbute it, Charming Billy demands the art of reading (as Oprah found out about Paradise, I believe it was, and called Toni Morrison who pronounced the above comment). Alice McDermott moves back and forth and around through time as though it almost didn't exist in a finite fashion. Her characters are true Irish men and women. I heard so many of the comments (and, yes, knew those suffering "with the drink") growing up in Illinois, especially Chicago where my family more or less headquartered. In this novel the story is one thing, but the people she brings to us are the read thing. I think I want to go back and read it again. The opening is a masterpiece of writing.
Rating:
Summary: National Book Award? Why?
Review: I looked forward to reading "Charming Billy" because I like McDermott, and I was delighted that she'd won the National Book Award. Perhaps I began with too positive an attitude because it wasn't long before I was thinking "Why the award? What is fresh about this story?" The most compelling part of the book occurs when Billy returns to Ireland and unexpectedly meets his 60-year-old love, a scenario that McDermott never really develops. Did I think Billy was charming? No! He was an unpleasant, self-centered alcoholic. I can't imagine why all these people felt such a stupendous loss when he died. (And maybe that's the point: he fooled them all.) My monthly book club met as I was finishing the book, and several of us had read it. No one felt the book was worth recommeding to those who hadn't. Still, the question remains, what have we missed that the National Book Award Committee saw?
Rating:
Summary: This book reads the way life feels
Review: Alice McDermott has a genius for capturing the telling detail in every scene she describes, so that everything seems both recognizable and seen for the first time. The novel is masterful in conveying the quality of memory and of the mysteries that exist in all families - mysteries that everyone has an opinion on but that can never be finally resolved. How wonderful to read a book in which there are no heroes or villains - just people like the ones we know, occasionally elevated by their dreams or their loyalties or their sense of humor, then sunk by their weaknesses; and what a pleasure to read a book in which relationships within family and neighborhood are central without being the crux of some hideous abuse that explains everything. In life, and in Charming Billy, no one thing explains everything.
Rating:
Summary: I don't think this deserved the National Book Award
Review: I'm sorry, but I don't think this novel deserved the National Book Award. I loved Cold Mountain (last year's winner), but I think there are far better books that could have won this award. The story did not move me in any way. I don't care how good the writing may be, if the story does not change my view of the world in some way or stir emotion in me, or even entertain in some way, then what's the purpose of reading it? I know this author is talented, but I wanted more.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This is the first novel I have read by Alice McDermott, but not the first "National Book Award" winner. At it's conclusion, I find myself wondering how this book ever won any award. It was a disappointment. The novel's premise is promising - reflection on a man's life from the vantage point of his wake - a love lost without closure because of a burdensome lie, and the emptiness of alcoholism. The promise of the story unfulfilled because not one of it's characters is described with enough dimension to enable the reader to identify with personality or plight. The reading laborsome due to ineffective description and frequent time jumping. Even when the reader is drawn into the present, a tale more compellingly told - it is short lived - leaving the reader flat, unsure if they want more or are just glad the confusion is over. Perhaps that is the metaphor (about life) the author was after, but this reader, unfortunately, was not made wiser. No recommendation here.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the award on the cover. . .
Review: I have to start off by saying that maybe I am not in the target audience for this book: mid-20's, jewish girl from New Jersey. I have no Irish in my past and no alcoholism in my family- but let me tell you, I think my families' stories would have made a better book. I read it because my roommate brought it home and thought we should both read it before going to a book club meeting about it. Well, she never made it past page 5. I am sure that I had a great deal to do with that, considering I can recall countless occassions where I told her how much I was hating it! From the start, I was not only not interested in the story the author was telling, but I was bored by it. I felt no real compassion for Billy, and thought that most of the book was just run-on dribble. By the time I forced myself to finish the last page- I did nothing short of throwing the book across my room aiming for the garbage can. Shame I missed it! So, to all of you out there who have heard all of the rave reviews- ignore them- there is nothing to rave about here!
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