Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable road-trip read, 13 Feb 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This is the story of Hattie, a young woman who leaves her life, and her failing love-life, in Paris and returns to Canada to look after her 15 year old nephew Logan and 11 year old niece Thebes. Their mother, Min, has been admitted to psychiatric hospital as a manic depressive. The father left the family ten years earlier. The book tells the story of a road trip to California, taken to find the father.
It presents a mixture of emotions and can be read in short bursts without affecting the story. The ongoing search for the father is interspersed with many flashbacks to the life that sisters Hattie and Min led with their parents, reminiscences of happier days for the children.
The ending is rather uncertain. It would be nice to know what happened next. However, this is an enjoyable book that would make a good holiday read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Original and entertaining..., 22 Mar 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I think that what sets this novel a notch higher than it might otherwise be, is the delightful narrative. I loved the conversations between the three central characters so much that the plot, a little transient for my taste, didn't totally affect my overall enjoyment of the novel.
Hattie returns to America, from her home in Paris, following a phonecall from her niece to say that she is needed... It turns out that Thebes and Logan's mum, Hattie's sister, is mentally unwell and in need of hospitalisation. Hattie is to care for her kids while she's admitted. What Hattie actually decides to do is take her niece and nephew on a road trip in search of their estranged father.
Cue a witty, sad, poignant and often very funny account of their time on the road together, interspersed with flashbacks of Hattie and her sister, Min, growing up and her long-term issues with depression and you have yourself a pretty fine read.
So, the four stars and not five,is mainly because I felt the book was rushed towards the end and could have done with being about 100 pages longer to feel finished for me - there was just something missing in order to complete the tale.
Still - highly recommended...
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasing read, 17 Feb 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This could have been a depressing tale: it concerns Hattie, who is charged with looking after her nephew and niece while her sister is suffering with a psychotic illness and being looked after in a psychiatric hospital. Unable to handle the children herself, Hattie decides to find their father Cherkis - who hasn't been a part of the children's lives for a long time.
The three of them set out for what would be called a `road movie', if it was a film.
Nephew Logan is typically teenaged and temperamental, and niece Thebes is cute, enthusiastic and funny (although I did wonder if she might have some of her mother's emotional difficulties perhaps...). The book is written through the eyes of Hattie - but I finished the book thinking that, of all the characters, I knew her the least.
Depressing it isn't: it's fun, engaging, easy to read and at times very funny. It's an easy read, and yet there is a depth and a genuine understanding of people's relationships and the effect of mental health issues on families.
I didn't like the lack of speech marks: I first saw this type of punctuation (or lack of it) in `Angela's Ashes' and it was very effective there, adding an atmospheric touch. But in this book it just made the dialogue breathless and a bit irritating to read after a while - I couldn't see the point.
I always enjoy a book that teaches me something or helps me to see an aspect of life through a new viewpoint, and The Flying Troutmans did exactly that. I would recommend this if you like American literature, and like something a bit different to read.
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