Charming Billy

Rating:
Summary: A moving beautiful reading experience
Review: It is true that the author tells her story through many voices but I did not find it as difficult to follow as the reviews below describe. Certainly Faulkner's voices are harder to make out but your reward for trying is great -- I feel the same way about this book. Yes there is some work involved [but really not very much] but it is definitely worth the work. This book brought tears to my eyes.

Rating:
Summary: Save your money, skip this one
Review: How God-awful boring!!! I can appreciate a book that skips the traditional straight narrative, and I enjoy getting the perspective of different characters --WHEN I CAN TELL WHICH CHARACTERS THE PERSPECTIVE IS COMING FROM!! (or when I care enough to figure it out). Yes some books are worth "unpacking" to get to the heart of the story. This book was not. And my god, are all Catholics as tedious and lame as those in Charming Billy?

Rating:
Summary: A boring, plodding read
Review: I just didn't "get" this book. I had to force myself to finish it, and I'm sorry I wasted the time. The writing was confusing and it was hard to figure out whose thoughts were whose. I was three-quarters of the way through it before I realized it was Dennis' daughter who was the narrarator. Why was she the narrarator? I'll never buy an "award winning" book again because my tastes have nothing in common with the committee that chose this one.

Rating:
Summary: Who's she talking to now?
Review: This read was very difficult to follow. The change in person and passages through time was frustrating. I often found myself having to go back a few pages just to verify where I was. This is one book I would not recommend

Rating:
Summary: There was not enough story in the story.
Review: I liked McDermott's characters (though a bit stereotypical). I thought her descriptions were beautiful, her prose flawless...I started out loving the book. But it really went nowhere. I kept expecting some climax, some reason to tell this tale. Yet, I found none! It seemed to me to have no greater purpose than the idea that when reality clashes with your ideals you live your life the best you can. Billy didn't have the life he wanted but this was how he got through it.

Rating:
Summary: I felt like I wasted my time reading this book.
Review: If the computer would let me give this book no stars I would have. I did not like any of the characters enough to care. I was so disappointed in this book.

Rating:
Summary: An achingly beautiful and poetic piece of fiction
Review: As an avid reader, I have had the sublime pleasure of stumbling upon many books by authors with true gifts for the written word. None, however, can compare to the gift that McDermott has. Her lyrical, prose-like style is without compare to any modern fiction writers. I have rarely if ever read a piece of fiction in which the characters come across as strongly as they do in this novel. Reading this book, for me, was like reading 243 pages of poetry. For anyone Irish or Irish American I think the characters in this book will seem especially close to home. However, this is not light reading! Many may find it too intense. This book should be required reading for anyone in a creative writing or composition class as much can be learned from McDermott's style. Easily one of the best books I've read in years.

Rating:
Summary: Good beginning but too many intricacies in middle.
Review: I heard Alice McDermott interviewed several times and wondered what the outcome of her prize-winning story would be. She's good at describing characters--the telling detail, the grimace, the laugh, the sly move, for example--but less good at painting the larger picture. So, Billy was charming. He drank. His cousin lied to him about a girl important to him. His life moved on. Next-to-last episode, he's in Ireland 20 years later, discovers the truth of the girl's sudden disappearance from his life. Last episode, Alice McDermott's telling details again but this time about the inside of the beach house in the Hamptons. Odd. Disjointed. Frank McCourt's self-proclaimed reason for success was he wrote a simple narrative from beginning to end. This book has more connection to the Irish in America, being New York Irishness, but loses the reader between the Bronx and East Hampton. The committee meant well. The publisher reaps the benefit, and Alice McDermott moves closer to the truth through fiction, I hope. I'll wait for the book that isn't quite so choppy and inconclusive.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, heart-wrenching and, finally, -soothing
Review: The book is infused with the power of familial love and the bonds of friendship. I think McDermott is a master of disjointed chronology--giving us a story that gets richer and richer while avoiding frustrating and artificial ellipses and jarring time shifts. I don't understand reviewers who found it dull or dismissable--Charming Billy was the most satisfying read I've had in months.

Rating:
Summary: Had to force myself to finish
Review: It had the potential to be a good story, but extremely slow...I was disappointed.