Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

Hello All,

I've just finished Wally Lamb's latest title, officially due out in November. As an Advance Reader's Copy, the book comes in at 700+ pages. Whew! It covers the Columbine tragedy, one couple's path throught their marriage, drug addiction, family (both past and present, and how the two are connected), and a history of women's penitentiaries in New England, to start with. Most of the story is told from Caelum Quirk's point of view, in first person, but occasionally tells the story from other characters' points of view, in third person. This is not confusing, as it has been for me in other books, but the transitions are not always clear or smooth.

For me, this book was just long. I feel that Mr. Lamb could have written two or more books from all that he covers in this one tome. There really is a lot here, most of it pretty interesting, and definitely an investment of time on the reader's part. But even though Mr. Lamb works hard at bringing the various stories together, I still think there is easily two books contained in this one book.
For those of you who like long, fairly intertwined, interesting books, and/or are a fan of Wally Lamb, this book is for you. I'm still undecided whether this book was for me.

Happy Reading!
Patti

2 comments:

Cathrine said...

:) excited to read your review. Have been waiting a decade for this book. If you want to sell your copy (for an amazon gift certificate to cover book price and postage) let me know ;-) !

Jill said...

You're right...this was LONG, and it lagged in a couple of places. That said, still a must-read in my opinion...