Hannah Pittard talked a bit about this book at a reading I went to this evening, in which she shared: if she had it to do over again she would actually leave out the character of Nora Lindell. The initial germ of the novel was her observation that her male friends looked back nostalgically on the past in a way that she didn't notice her female friends doing; and indeed this focus on the past, particularly a certain age range (what Bruce Springsteen was singing about in "Glory Days" I suppose) is what this book is about, not what happens to Nora. Nora, who was supposed to be dead in the novel's conception, except that Pittard couldn't bring herself to actually write Nora's death into creation, leaving her fate up in the air.

I really liked this novel when I read it when it came out in 2011; now that it's re-entered my consciousness I'm gonna have to go re-read it, I do believe. ( )

This is a tough book.

It's well written and compelling but it's also confusing and unpleasant. I do not know how true to life this version of life from the POV of boys and men is (especially since it's written by a woman) but I really, really hope that it is way off base. It makes most men seem very unpleasant. Unpleasant and immature to their core.

As for what happened to Nora (an unpleasant, confusing, unlikeable character) I guess I'm not sure. I think I know the truth but like "the boys" who narrate, I will always wonder a little bit about those bones.




( )

This is a well written but not a great book for me. It would have been a great short story or even a good novella but it drags as anything more than that. I stopped caring about 100 pages into it and by the end I just wanted it to end. ( )

This was a totally 3rd person view and it drove me crazy....took me forever to get into the storyline itself..... ( )

An amazing book. I don't usually read literary fiction but this was really good. The book wasn't too long, but I finished it in just two days because the story drew me in. The story was very nonlinear, and in that sense had a Calvino-esque flavor to it. I had a little trouble keeping up with - and picturing - all the different characters. But it was very well done. Especially considering it was a female author focused mainly, but not exclusively, on male characters, from their point of view, both as boys and as men. Highly recommended. ( )