A Very Good Year

Rating:
Summary: A very touching tale...
Review: A Very Good Year is one of those books that directly connect to the essence of the human spirit. Cooch's toils and challenges reflect the troubles still facing many teenagers today. To be honest, I would have loved to read this back when I was a teenager, because being able to relate to any reader is exactly what this touching real life story does. It is a very real, human story... A rarity now at days.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Title...
Review: As a member of the cast of characters in this story, I am amazed at the title the author chose. I wasn't aware of all that was happening back then, until near the end, and it captured the terror and sadness of adolescence. We think we know everything and we know so little...
I take my hat off to Cooch for surviving that year as well as he did and for publishing his first novel.

Rating:
Summary: Love, Death, Conflict, Sexual Desire, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll
Review: Do you remember what it was like to be 17? If you were like me, life was full of possibilities . . . and things you wanted to try -- the less your parents knew about what you were trying, the happier you were.

Larry Cuocci had a more momentous 17th year than most people do because his beloved Mom was dying of skin cancer. The two were closely bonded in a family where Mom and Dad didn't get along as well as they might have, Dad couldn't deal with Mom's illness and his sister had been kicked out. As a result, Mr. Cuocci became the emotional crutch for his Mom as well as her nurse. As the cancer became worse, she asked him to end her life if she couldn't deal with it any longer. He promised to do so. How that promise played out makes this book a gripping story.

Against that backdrop, Mr. Cuocci experienced the joie de vivre that comes from skipping school, falling in love, getting a drivers license and starting college. The year was filled with many epiphanies as events would remind him of pivotal moments in his past.

If you are like me, seventeen is pretty remote now. Why should you want to read about it? In the case of A Very Good Year, Mr. Cuocci is an extremely talented writer and very candid reporter about the state of his own life. He takes you into places where you haven't been before . . . but still might be called upon to go. It's a worthwhile and strangely invigorating trip that will enrich your life in the process.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book
Review: If you are a reasonably cool guy, young or old, you should read "Cooch's" story of his seventeenth year

Rating:
Summary: Bravissimo!
Review: Rebeccasreads highly recommends A VERY GOOD YEAR as a very good memoir, passionately told in a mixture of fluid memories & the disjointed, unraveling of family history. Deeply intuitive, throat-clenching in the sorrow & pain of a wounded heart & a desperate soul, crying out for purpose & courage, even as his mother asks him for one final promise: that he not let her suffer longer than she can bear.

We've come a long way in family & grief counseling since Larry Cuocci was seventeen, & had to walk through the valley of his mother's death. While drama & tragedy thunder from every page like an Italian opera, & a young man's sexual yearnings & adventures tickle you into giggles, it is Larry Cuocci's lambent language that illumines his memories of administering to his tortured mom, & grasping life with both hands, & doing it his way.
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Rating:
Summary: It was a very good day
Review: Several pages into this book, I was trapped. Mr. Cuocci drew his characters so beautifully and skillfully that he made me care about them and what was happening to them from the very beginning. Although I had things to do the day I picked up the book, I kept coming back to reading it until I finished it in the evening. There were times when my curiosity made me want to turn to the end of the book to see if he acquiesced to his mother's wish, but I knew that I would need to be part of everything that occurred during that year to help shape his decision. And what a year it was! I laughed. Mr. Cuocci's ability to paint himself and the situations of that year in a humorous light delighted me. And I cried: Observing the pain suffered by the family and watching Mr. Cuocci grow up -- often kicking and screaming as he fought the process -- touched me. This was a wonderful book. I hope the author graces us with another.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Book
Review: This book is very well written. Cuocci hits a home run with his very first novel. His use of description is amazing and makes you feel as though you can see what's happening. On the subject of content, this book has everything. Humor, drama, tragedy, romance, eroticism, and life. While reading A Very Good Year, you remember your own experiences with your family, friends, lost loves, and school. I would recomend this book to anyone with a pulse. Pallet Press made a wise decision making this their first release. I few more like it and they could be really big. Read this book.