Amor Towles re-creates the beautiful atmosphere of this era and fills the pages with people and events that take you back to this time of witty conversation, lavish parties and soaring ambitions. Read something else, this one isn't worth it.PBR Book Review:Manhattan in the 1930's with all its charm, sophistication and jazz-age dynamics is the highlight of this book. So yeah, can you tell I didn't care for this one much? I feel like I've been too harsh and bitchy in this review, but what can I say? Something about this book rubbed me the wrong way. I hated the name Tinker for the banker/(SPOILER)manstress (male version of mistress). It starts out kind of interesting but quickly flatlines. Nothing about the plot is particularly new or original. I know this was compared to Fitzgerald (another author of whom I am not fond) and I can see why, but it's a pale imitation. Heavy on the style, light on the substance. Others have complimented the writing style, but personally I wasn't impressed. Towles, so perhaps you could hush up and get on with the story. No one cares about your page-long analysis of Walden, Mr. Towles also had this super obnoxious habit of going off into pretentious tangents about classic literature.basically worshipping works of the Great White Man Authors (Hemingway, Thoreau, Dickens.) while shitting all over female writers (Austen, Woolf, Buck). I'm going to attribute this issue to the fact that the author grew up in East Coast suburbs and went to the Ivy Leagues - my guess is he's grown up too close to those elite circles to actually see how snobby and exclusive (and racist and sexist) they can be. Additionally, I felt that Katey's working-class background was.unlikely? She was much too readily accepted into the elite circles and much too integrated into that lifestyle to have actually come from impoverished working-class roots. The whole story is viewed through her perspective and this is basically her story, and yet I finished the book feeling like I didn't know her at all. There was no personality, no interesting flaws or redeeming characteristics. Katey was basically everything - a party girl, but also very serious and a hard worker, gregarious and super friendly, but also stoic and reserved.so she was basically nothing.
It's rare that men can write convincingly in a female voice, but it can be done ( She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb is one example of a male author writing in a believable female voice).
First of all, the main character (with the terrible name of Katey Kontent) was completely unconvincing and not at all compelling. I think I enjoyed about the first twenty pages of this one, and the rest just fell utterly flat. I waffled between a one or two star rating, but I'm not feeling particularly generous today, so one star it is.īasically: upper-class middle-aged man tries to write as/about working-class young woman.
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