Rating: 
Summary: he's no Beaver Cleaver
Review: The perspective of a 12-year-old boy in 1970s America is dead-on in this mosaic of his life: parents who fight ad nauseum and throw the word "divorce" around; an older sister with friends he lusts after; an older brother with whom he pals around; and a hodgepodge of good friends in the neighborhood and all the trouble they cause with and for each other.This is no "Leave It to Beaver" per se --- it's how "the Beav" would have acted in real life without the lame script writers.
Rating:
Summary: he's no Beaver Cleaver
Review: The perspective of a 12-year-old boy in 1970s America is dead-on in this mosaic of his life: parents who fight ad nauseum and throw the word "divorce" around; an older sister with friends he lusts after; an older brother with whom he pals around; and a hodgepodge of good friends in the neighborhood and all the trouble they cause with and for each other. This is no "Leave It to Beaver" per se --- it's how "the Beav" would have acted in real life without the lame script writers.
Rating:
Summary: Honest, poignant, and funny!
Review: The thing that matters most to me in a coming of age story is that it exposes the pivotal transition between youth and adulthood in an honest and accessable way. This novel does that in spades! It's particularly effective in illustrating how entertaining and sometimes heartbreaking it is simply getting through each day. The dialog is spot-on real. Events are portayed without dictating how you should feel about them - you just naturally experience the surprise, confusion, injustice, and joy of being a kid again. Changes take place around us all the time - they frame our lives and give us substance, sometimes at our own expense - but we don't have to let them beat us and this novel left me feeling good about that.
Rating:
Summary: In the Cherry Tree - A winner!
Review: What was the last book you read that had you laughing out loud? What was the last book you read, that after 20 pages, had you emailing and calling friends telling them "You have to read this book!" "In the Cherry Tree" is that type of book. Now I have to admit, that after emailing and calling a number of friends, I had this terrible thought "Is he - Pope - going to be able to sustain this, for the next couple of hundred pages?" He did. It's easy to summarize the book saying it's a collection of vignettes chronicling the life of a fairly well-to-do Italian-Scots American family as seen through the eyes of the twelve-year old son, but as with all capsule summaries, it doesn't capture the magic of the book. You have to read it. It's as funny a book as I've read, but it isn't all belly laughs. The characters seem like real people; they have warts; it isn't a pollyannish view of family life. Pope has a way of describing sad events, or rough patches the family is going through, that are poignant and revealing, but with a deft light touch. There is undoubtedly a literary term to describe the way Pope finishes off each chapter with a sentence that is something like the punch-line of a joke - a beautiful end that hits home and summarizes the chapter on an upbeat note. You feel good. I have the feeling that if you were teaching a course on "How to write", this is one of the books you'd use as an example. As for me, well I just ordered another three copies.
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