Saturday, August 2, 2008

The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik

I liked this book, but not as much as I really wanted to, and nowhere near as much as I enjoyed some of Landvik's other offerings. Though the cast of characters was initially interesting, they all seemed a little too eccentric as the novel progressed. The movie in a small town element was done better in the movie State and Main, and I for one thought there were too many subplots running throughout the novel which overcomplicated it all.

I did think that Fenny, Bill and Lee were well-drawn, developed characters, but found the entire ex-husband/abuse story line deserved more inital attention especially given its sudden importance halfway though the story. The Hollywood people all seemed fairly shallowly drawn, and poor Boyd never really got the development he deserved.

Truthfully, even a mediocre Landvik novel is better than a lot of other books out there, but I was disappointed that this novel didn't live up to her usual high standards.

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