Dive : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT READ!
Review: DIVE got me to thinking a lot about crime and punishment, love and need. Friendship too. There are some unforgettable characters-- of course, the lovers Ray and Ruby-- but the friends, Gary, Abbie, and especially Jeannie, are all just as potent. I think the New York Times is right about Teasley writing with a poet's economy. Her prose can be at once very lush and blunt, the scope at once philosophical and intimate. But I didn't see the Elmore Leonard in there, Teasley is much deeper. I finished it in two sittings, and I know I'm going to read it again after her highly recommended short stories, Glow in the Dark.

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional novel!
Review: I feel compelled to weigh in on the discussion of Lisa Teasley's DIVE because my girlfriend insisted I read it, and I thought it was because she was trying to teach me another lesson in chick values. Was I ever wrong. I knew a guy a lot like Ray, the main character. I'm blown away at the ease in which Teasley gets the male voice and the male drive. I grew up on a midwestern farm myself, so I very much related to Ray, so much so it was freaky. Because I could trust this author to really get that experience, I found myself letting go and really loving the letters between the women-- both of them far from typical in their desires, individuality and strength. I highly recommend this book to guys who don't ordinarily read women writers, because they'll be surprised at the relief they will feel at how someone really gets the misdirected anger, the violence, the hot sex, the wanting, and the need to just lose yourself in someone else, just because.

Rating:
Summary: Keeps the eyes moving
Review: The reviews call this thing uneven, but maybe they were holding their heads crooked at the time. Lisa's characters *feel* warm to the touch, and their lives, while swimming in extraordinary events, ring as true and as ordinary as any of us. These are not people living fantastically unconcerned lives in an fantasy setting, these are you and me trying to cope with the billions of forces that weigh on us daily. We can't filter them all. Ray and Ruby try to turn towards each other and make "it" work, but those jagged jarring events are always just around the corner.