Little Children : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Why so much acclaim?
Review: I read all types of books, but when I picked this one up in the entry section of Borders recently, and noticed how much acclaim it had received, I thought I was in for a good read. Something a little deeper. I enjoyed reading it, and it read quickly, but, it was a little too soap-opera-y for me. Perhaps it bordered on a romance novel - which is one book type that I am not a fan of.

I really do like a lot of the "chick lit" books, and I'm not sure this one quite qualifies, but I was disappointed in this one. I probably won't hunt down this author's other titles, given my experience with this one.

Rating:
Summary: The Joke's on Perrotta
Review: As a suburban father living in a mixed community of middle and upper middle class people, I have a strong reaction to this book. Its typical underlying platitudes about crazy parenting and light-weight people living in suburbia are those of someone assuming a superior pose. For 90% of this book, Perrotta serves up a soap-opera parade of losers, perverts, frustrated moms, selfish thirty somethings, and bratty toddlers who are just an annoying lot of crybabies and throwers of tantrums. Know what I think? I think Mr. Perrotta's got problems, but he should keep them to himself and not think all of suburbia is suffering from his frustrations. Oh yes, the ending redeems everything, but in the meantime, we are made to go from one short-circuited life to another, caring but not caring about couple A's weird marriage, and couple B's weird marriage, and couple C's weird marriage. Hey, is anybody out there worth a damn? Or are we all sniffing panties and fantasizing about what we could have been? My experience tells me this novel is make-believe from the author's world, not from the real world. I didn't care much about these people, although I do admit this is a fast read, like rifling through the NY Post or some other raggy newspaper. Not great. Not worth my time. And I regret having read it.

Rating:
Summary: Wry, charming, humane...a loveable satire...
Review: It's so wonderful when a writer can carry the 'tone' of a book throughout, without faltering. Perrotta does this, seemingly effortlessly. The tone here is witty, wry, light, charming, yet the subject matter is extremely serious. A bunch of confused suburbanites with little children, many of the adults still 'children' themselves, find that suddenly there is a convicted child molester, perhaps even a child killer, in their midst. What's so fabulous about this book is that, contrary to what one reviewer here wrote, the criminal is not the 'embodiment of evil' but is realistically portrayed as sad, confused, pathetic, cut off from simple human interactions "normal" people take for granted - as much a victim of life's craziness as everyone else. 'Everyone else' includes Todd and Sarah, suddenly in love with each other instead of their incompatible spouses; Larry, a tantrum-throwing hothead hell-bent on driving the child molester from the neighborhood, the molester's poor old mother, forced to suffer the slings and arrows of her sanctimonious neighbors when she has done nothing more terrible than to care for her son - and other assorted very human people caught in the the stifling, cookie-cutter American suburbs and the young-parent trap. For the thirty-somethings in the book, chafing at the bit, adult life has begun, but it is not a whole lot of fun. One feels compassion for all the characters in this book, thanks to an amazingly deft - and humane - writer. What lifts this book above the common herd is the writer's understanding that we all have the basic need to be loved. The gathering of his characters in the children's park, at the end of the novel, is a metaphor for this profound truth.


Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: I cannot figure out why this book has won such critical acclaim. It was not 'raw and real', nor profound, nor filled with intelligent observations about modern suburban life.