2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a truly remarkable book, 20 Jun 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Shouting at the Ship Men (Paperback)
This was recommended to me by a good friend of mine whose judgement I trust implicitly so even though it was written by a man (I apologise for being sexist) and had an odd title, I bought it. It has to be one of the best literary surprises of my life. This book has that feature of all the best books - you start reading and by the end of the first page, you are captivated by the writing, by the pictures the author paints - you can smell the air and hear the voices. I won't go into the story - it's been described above. Suffice it to say that this is a story that will stay with me a lifetime, that I had to cancel a lunch engagement to finish it, that I cried (and laughed) while I was reading it and that I finished it only to start it again (I didn't feel I had given the early pages enough attention first time round). Read this book - recommend it to your friends. Tim Geary is a remarkable writer.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm so jealous, 24 Jun 1999
By A Customer
I haven't even finished this book yet, but am enjoying it so completely that I couldn't wait to shout about it. I am a writer and my book is currently in the top twenty bestsellers, which is wonderful, but when I read a book like this, it makes me want to spit at the injustice of the publishing world. This book is a thousand times better than mine - this is the book that I always wanted to write and I couldn't because it's so difficult to write this well - Tim Geary makes it look so bloody easy! If I could write a book even half this good, I would die happy.
It's the little things that make this book so special - Portia storming out of a wedding because she couldn't cope with what was being expected of her socially, the competitiveness between Luke and his brother, the way he describes summer dying in a matter of hours one weekend, Portia not feeling like having sex first thing in the morning but doing it anyway. Nothing grates, there are no cliches, it's all so familiar yet there are descriptions of situations, places and emotions that I've never seen before in any novel. Geary also manages to make you really like Portia, who is, quite frankly, the type of girl I would steer clear of in real life, who I would be suspicious of, and that is such a clever thing to be able to do.
Although this is a stunningly well-written novel, it doesn't take itself at all seriously - it is literary with a small L. It is accessible and commercial. There is no reason why this book shouldn't appeal to the same sorts of people who have been buying my book its thousands. So why have I never heard of Geary and why is his book going to sell a tenth of mine?
It's all so unfair. Rectify this situation immediately by buying this book for all your friends and talking about it to strangers on the street!!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unconvincing, 20 April 2007
This review is from: Shouting at the Ship Men (Paperback)
This seemed to be a poor attempt at a literary novel. The prose was so over the top. Also, the characters and plot were verging on the ridiculous and at times I felt almost embarassed to be reading it.
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