Customer Reviews

About Yvonne

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Donna Masini's "About Yvonne" is one of the best books that I have read. I actually became absorbed in Terry's world never quite knowing what she would do next yet feeling that we shared the exact same emotions. Donna Masini is one of the most gifted American writers that I have come across in the past few years. Though the characters' language can be coarse, Masini's writing never loses its flowing, beautiful quality. Terry Spera is a unique literary creation in that she is a stalker who knows that she hunts her husband's possible lover, knows its wrong and yet in clandestine rebellion she is proud of her actions. I cannot wait until her next novel or next book of poetry is published, and I am sure that I will devour it the same way that I have "About Yvonne".

It is pieces like About Yvonne that mystify me as to exactly how some authors manage to get published. Trudging though this book was almost a chore (luckily, it was short and didn't require much deep speculation). The main character is so desperately shallow and pathetic it is impossible to feel any kind of sympathy or empathy for her. The book is so replete with annoying redundancies and cliches and clumsily written "erotica," it probably would have been better if the author spared us and contained it to a short story. Masini writes about New York like a person who has never been to New York, writes about art galleries like a person who has never been to an art gallery, and writes about sex like a person who's never...well, you get the idea.

Just finished it. Loved it! Masini has explored with uncommon honesty what it feels like to be lost, to be obsessed, to be haunted by the fact that one's beloved is sleeping with another. Her language never hits a false note. I didn't see this as a "New York book" but as a tale about what goes on inside the mind of someone not capable of thinking clearly at the moment. I found the narrator, the central character, to be utterly believable and real. Just the right amount of suspense, and just the right amount of redemption (not much, but enough).

I read this book right after it came out, when I was going through a divorce on grounds of...you got it. While some (many?) of Terry's actions are over the top and perhaps not believable, her feelings about the affair are completely *true*. I was convinced Masini must have gone through the same thing in order to write it so well. I just went back and re-read the pages I dog-eared -- I still remember feeling just as Terry does on pgs.295, 86, 204,...

After reading "about yvonne" I was interested in Donna Masini's poetry and purchased that book also--EXCELLENT! As far as the comments about the artist/art galleries not being "realistic" that person has not been to a variety of NYC galleries--what can pass for a gallery here is mind numbing--I've seen it all, from expensive clown paintings selling on the upper east side to student shows that were so tired-- more penis paintings... to great stuff in unexpected places But anyone truly into art, doesn't really judge so I won't judge Masini's gallery. It's a personal experience thing, when you write, and Masini writes so personally that you feel you are her--someone famous once said that to be really into reading a novel, you have to be able to live inside the novel as you read it-- I was right there, eating Pastina and listening to Dylan with Masini--and altho I am not Catholic I was there with her and the priest and was scared. I felt thrilled and scared to be inside Yvonne's apartment too--her writing is that great When does her next book hit the stores?????????

This book offered the most unrealistic and ridiculous portrait of an art gallery and a gallerist that I have ever read. I think the author and copy editor should have taken the time to check the spelling of the artist's names that they used in the book as well.

The plot was just an excuse for the author to indulge herself in the kind of descriptive fantasy that the media loves to use to characterize New York. It was like a patchwork of magazines too - let's have the woman steal clothes so that we can be a little bit Glamour, work out to get a little Shape Magazine in, etc., etc. I wish I had checked this book out of the library, at least I wouldn't be out $20.00.

...and this novel is proof of that. Masini's trying so hard to be intellectual, psychological, and New York hip that she kind of forgets what the story's about and as a result, so do we readers. The premise is fantastic, too bad it had to be drowned out by excessive waffling and maddeningly inaccurate NYC references. Oh, yeah, and the more-bored-than-insane protagonist didn't help, either...

About Yvonne is misrepresented in blurbs and synopses. I've shown this novel to street poets and university professors, from US Marines to hairdressers. They have all torn through the book, commenting on its narrative drive as well as the poetry of its language. About Yvonne is so much more than a sexy thriller. It's a literary tour de force that makes you want to turn pages.
About Yvonne has been misrepresented in blurbs and synopses. This novel is so much more than a sexy thriller. I've shown it to US Marines and downtown hairdressers, street poets and university professors. They all turn pages, and they all comment on the narrative pace as well as its language. About Yvonne is the most exciting novel I've read this summer.

About Yvonne is clearly either a book one loves or hates. Certainly everyone has differing opinions, but to question the books lack of depth and to call it predictable puzzles me. One reviewer commented that the lack of depth in the novel was what bothered them most. The reviewer considered the ideals expressed in the novel; love, sex, religion, obsession and poetry to be the most cliche topics imaginable. Topics that apparently are not what affects humanity the most. So, if you agree with that and are turned off by sometimes brash and obscene diction then skip this, if you prefer a walk on the wild side (the novel kept me enthralled) and can roll with it, then please, read it.

as a New Yorker myself, I felt Masini's Manhattan to be very realistic. So many people write about NYC, yet you really cannot know the place until you've lived here for many years--Masini growing up in a borough also helped the book. Her NYC is the real thing, her writing is a blend of suspense and erotica. I look forward to her future novels.