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To truly understand and appreciate and ultimately love this book, you probably have to be a Deadhead, a follower of the music and wisdom as espoused by the Grateful Dead. It's not imperative, but it must help. If you're not, many of the references and humor and jibes here fall flat, and that's what this ends up being - a novel that misses the mark.
Not by much. In her first outing, Dutton wields a strong sense of rhythm and continuity in her writing. She grabs hold of an idea, wrestles around with it, and subdues it. Here, in the opening paragraph, she immediately scores points.
"At Stillwater Academy For Boys, names were one way to calculate the score. A guy with a first name and a last name that sounded like a first name - Kenny James, for example - had a trust fund and a couple of summer homes. A first name that sounded like a last name and a last name meant first-generation cash - electronics in the home and American-made cars like Mustangs. Every once in a while, you met someone with a hyphen, a guy with a last-name first name, last name, and another last name. Davis Richardson-MacArthur - that was a guy with real problems."
Funny. Intellectual. Thought-provoking. With the bar raised to lofty levels on the first page, you'd expect more of the same. Unfortunately, it's not there. Many of the scenes unfold at agonizingly slow paces, and threads are lost and characters lose appeal.
If you were a Jerry Garcia acolyte, you might disagree. And that's good. For those of you who showed your Grateful allegiance through tie-dye and traveling around the country seeing every concert you could, you would give this book four stars - maybe more. But it still lacks that ability to keep you glued to every page like an early Tom Robbins or John Irving book, authors capable of bringing you to your knees with laughter and at the same time telling a tale that only grows stronger with each page turned.
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Steven Rosen/2009 for curled
up with a good kid's book |
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For grown-up fiction, nonfiction and speculative fiction book reviews,
visit our sister site Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)
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Freaked