Patrick deWitt

The plot and way the story is told is delightful, very arch and amusing and old-fashioned in a way that made me think of The Sisters Brothers (although perhaps that could be chalked up to the fact that Dan Stiles designed the jackets of both books, in the editions that I have). The only thing I really didn’t like was the orgy scene. It was completely unexpected, quite crude details, and I happened to be reading this book on the bus, which was really embarrassing. On the plus side, this has basically pushed French Exit to second place in my overall Patrick deWitt ranking.… (mer)

Very sadly, I had to give this book 3 stars. Overall I enjoyed the beginning and I liked the end. But the whole middle where he goes off about running away and those people and being in the show. Like WTF was that? I didn't get the point of that and made no sense to me. I enjoyed the rest and him volunteering at the senior center and going back and learning about his friend and how he went away with his wife. And it ended up being his ex-wife in the senior center. I really did enjoy all that and how he got to speak to his friend/ex-wife's son as well. If you took out the whole running away part and all those random people. Maybe I missed something in there? But I never saw the point of it and it dragged on FOREVER...at least it felt like it.… (mer)

This wasn't what I was expecting in a novel with the title The Librarianist. While the main character was a librarian, the focus is not on libraries per se, but instead on really three points on the lifeline of said librarian.
I was expecting vignettes about library life, but instead the novel has a very melancholy feel, a bit like A Man Called Ove, but with less humor. And the abrupt flashbacks to the three points in the librarians life left me wanting more, more "fill in those gaps", especially on the grand adventure he had as a kid.… (mer)

Mostly charming but part three (out of four) feels like it's a different story that either the author didn't think could stand on its own so he stuck it into this novel or threw into this novel to make it hit the page count. Sure, it's believably about the same main character, I suppose. But it's about a few days in his life at age eleven that, other than a passing mention of having been to the location, has no relation either to the events in his retirement that make up parts one and four or the time around his marriage in part two that forms the necessary backstory for parts one and four.… (mer)