Hard to understand the rave reviews
Just finished reading Brooklyn by Colm Toibin--and I can't remember the last time I started out liking a "heroine" then grew to dislike her so much by the end of the book. She's so passive and, by the end of the story, so inconsiderate (to put it kindly) that I lost all sympathy for her.
Eilis is a young Irish woman in the 1950s whose family decides to send her to Brooklyn because there are no jobs in their small Irish town. She doesn't want to go to Brooklyn but she does. She doesn't want to be a salesgirl in a department store but she is. She doesn't want to settle down with the nice American boy she meets but (well, you can see where this is going). I know this was before the Feminist Revolution but get a backbone, woman.
There's a strange episode involving bathing suits and her (female) boss that goes nowhere and seems to serve no purpose. And most of the characters aren't well fleshed out. For example, we never really get to understand what makes her boyfriend, Tony, tick. If anyone really loved this book, please tell me why.
Just finished reading Brooklyn by Colm Toibin--and I can't remember the last time I started out liking a "heroine" then grew to dislike her so much by the end of the book. She's so passive and, by the end of the story, so inconsiderate (to put it kindly) that I lost all sympathy for her.
Eilis is a young Irish woman in the 1950s whose family decides to send her to Brooklyn because there are no jobs in their small Irish town. She doesn't want to go to Brooklyn but she does. She doesn't want to be a salesgirl in a department store but she is. She doesn't want to settle down with the nice American boy she meets but (well, you can see where this is going). I know this was before the Feminist Revolution but get a backbone, woman.
There's a strange episode involving bathing suits and her (female) boss that goes nowhere and seems to serve no purpose. And most of the characters aren't well fleshed out. For example, we never really get to understand what makes her boyfriend, Tony, tick. If anyone really loved this book, please tell me why.
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