Charming Billy

Rating:
Summary: Charmingly Boring
Review: Oh, swoon. A poor drunk named Billy Lynch dies and his family recants his life, from his midnight drunken stumblings to his tragic love affair. Isn't it romantic? NO, it's BORING!!!!!!! Indefinitely destined to put a hyperactive 3 year old insomniac to sleep. I really wanted to love Billy and his neice, the narrarator, but I kept finding myself hoping someone would be murdered or discover their mother is really their sister. In the end, nothing happens - Billy dies and everyone's sad. The End.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: A charming, poignant story of interwoven family characters, each with their own viewpoint regarding one specific family member. They discuss his impact on their lives and in the process let us see into each of their lives, as well.
Particularly moving if you understand big city neighborhoods and the ethnic groups that evolved there, especially those established during the last century.
Not a lot of action, but real insight into the bonds of family and friend comraderies.

Rating:
Summary: Boring much?
Review: Being a senior in High School, I guess "Charming Billy" wasn't the best book for me to read. My attention span could not last while reading the endless pages of boring babble. The plot to this book was on the right track and it had potential to be a classic novel. Yet, there was no action to attract me, and my mind started to wonder. Not only was it very boring, I found that the introduction of so many characters that had insignificant roles to the plot was overall confusing. Maybe my dislike for this book was due in part to my age. I don't belive this is a good read for a teenager, but might reccomend it to adults.

Rating:
Summary: It's not as "Charming" as the title leads us to believe...
Review: I chose to read Charming Billy in my twelfth-grade Contemporary Literature English class. I do not see what people like about this book. I found it to be rather boring and uneventful, not to mention confusing. This entire book is based off of Billy, a drunk who passed away. The narrarator is Billy's cousin's daughter. Her purpose is to relay Billy's life to the readers. I saw no moral or lesson in Charming Billy and was rather disspointed. I would have much rather put my time and energy into reading a more interesting book with a lesson that would have some impact on my life. I hope I helped in your book-reading decision.

Rating:
Summary: She had me until the end
Review: I really enjoyed this book - right up until the last 20 or so pages. I did not find the theme of mourning love lost implausible, as did other readers, but completely believable. I enjoyed the characters, although I also got quite confused by the number of Dannies and Rosemaries and Lynches - I chose to just read through it, however, and didn't feel like I lost anything of the message. I thought the writing was really beautiful. But then the narrator brings it all to a screeching halt when she, for no apparent reason, addresses her husband directly (apparently the object of her narration, although I don't really know why) and talks about the night they first stripped naked together as young adults. It was jarring and it irritated me - it completely disrupted the flow of the story. Shaking that off, I tried to get back into it to enjoy the end of the story, but the narration never regained it's beauty or poignancy. So, I'm left thinking it was a good book, but I'm also ultimately oddly dissatisfied.

Rating:
Summary: Disjointed characters and plot.
Review: There are so many characters, none of which we get to know very well except the deceased Billy, and even he is only a casual acquaintance. The book takes many sidetrips, flashbacks, and the relationship between some of the characters is never really clear. All in all, an uninteresting book which takes too much effort to read.

Rating:
Summary: Endless tedium
Review: Tedious, exasperating and contrived ... are three words to describe this book. This story just drags on and on to a phony ending. Leave it in the shop!

Rating:
Summary: Awful!
Review: Nothing about this book would make me recommend it. The basic storyline is shallow, based on a false premise - that a man who learns that his fiancee has died overseas never recovers from his sorrow and uses that disappointment as an excuse to wallow for the next 40 years in an alcoholic fantasy about her. His story is told through a number of characters' accounts of the trials and trivia of his pathetic life. I felt removed by this method of story telling from any real emotional connection with the sad sack hero, "Charming Billy". Like Billy, this book [is bad]!

Rating:
Summary: Gullible Billy
Review: There's artistry and perceptiveness in this tale of betrayal and deception, woven through the accounts of major and minor players. Unfortunately, so little of the story comes to us from the romantic hero himself, that there is virtually no emotional connection with tragic Billy. The story is mostly told by his cousin Dennis's daughter, who had little or no contact with Billy. Even at the climax of the story, when Billy unexpectedly meets his lost love Eva again after 30 years of believing she is dead, the scene fails to convey the shock, betrayal, amazement, or whatever it is he is feeling. There is a moving portrayal of the dismal lives endured by other characters, such as Billy's unfortunate wife Maeve. However, there is too much irrelevant detail about minor characters and places, seemingly there just to expand a very slim story line. Billy does not convince as a charmer, nor as a tragic hero, he is little more than a shadowy excuse for a wasted life.

Rating:
Summary: Worst reading of a book-on-tape I've ever listened to
Review: This is not a review of the book; rather, it is a review the performance given by whoever read this book on tape. It is, quite simply, the worst reading of a book on tape I've ever heard! The reader's southern accent makes her attempted Irish accent sound like something more suited to a Saturday Night Live skit in which the joke is how bad the Irish accent is. It's almost impossible to listen to after awhile. In fact, I can no longer hear the name Billy without hearing the ridiculous parody of an Irish accent that this reader employs endlessly. So who makes these decisions? Would it be that hard to find someone with an actual Irish accent for a novel with the theme of Irish ethnicity at its core? Would it be that hard NOT to choose someone with a thick southern accent? Hello?