Ok, just because I am attempting to return to some non-book/reading blogging, doesn't mean there still won't be a lot of book posts still popping up here. While blogging was a "hobby" constant for a whole bunch of years, thankfully reading has not wavered, though I have not been as fast out of the gates in 2010 compared to previous years.
Event thought it delays my "Best of 2009" book post for a bit, I decided against throwing the last 3 book into just one post, it is seems only fair to give each book its due.
I picked up Sag Harbor as I had heard pretty good things about it and it hand been landing on some best-of/year-end lists (though certainly not a consensus pick). Much like Jeannette Walls' Half Broke Horses, my understanding of this book is that it is sort of a fictionalized memoir of author Colson Whitehead's childhood, a black kid spending the summers on predominantly white Long Island, New York. Also, Whitehead is around my age and I heard there was a good deal of 80s nostalgia going on in book.
Further encouraged, this sounded something along the lines of JR Moehringer's memoir, The Tender Bar... again, similar age and the Long Island setting (ok, I'm from NJ... but a lot of folks seem to think there is little difference between to the two).
As you can see a lot of expectation and comparison here and you can guess how that usually turns out. While I think Sag Harbor is a well-written book, I really struggled with it and if I wasn't so stubborn of a reader, I likely would have abandoned it. Each chapter is a heavily detailed incident in the coming-of-age of Benji over the summer of 1985. While the chapters usually started off well, I found myself glazing over midway through and not really relating to, or more importantly caring about, such stuff as BB gun fights, ice-cream shop scooping, or getting into a nightclub.
I felt there were plenty of opportunities here to engage me or something to hold onto to but they were in short supply or never fully realized, whether it was the nostalgia or life as an upper-middle class African American "Cosby" family. Also, while we got to know Benji quite well, I could not keep straight the rest of Benji's circle of summer friends (outside of maybe his brother and friend, NP). I am not opposed to "plot-less" novels, but just felt I was moving from one vicious circle to another, chapter after chapter. There just never seemed to be any pay-off or even forward movement other than the slow crawl to Labor Day Weekend and waiting for this endless summer to end.
Perhaps I was not in the right frame of mind as there are plenty of rave reviews (from regular folk, not critics), but it just didn't do it for me and I guess it is refreshing for you to read that I don't gush over each and every book that I read.
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