Customer Reviews

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking: A Novel

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

 

 

Where has Aoibheann Sweeney been all these years? I loved this book. it's about Miranda, an odd girl who moves to new York from a small island in New England. Her father is a spaced out academic. He loves whiskey. He ignores his daughter. He never misplaces his pens. Her mother is dead. Poor Miranda is lost in New York, perpetually confused about who she is and where she's going. But everybody loves her nonetheless, and she gets plenty of action in NYC in no time.

Sweeney's writing is amazing. Spare and poetic, but not at all annoyingly so. I hope she gives us another novel soon.

I loved this book! I found it beautiful, gritty, magical, completely moving, and sometimes very funny. It is an unconventional coming-of-age story that is terse and tough-minded but unafraid of portraying raw emotion. It is also a story about art-making, art's entanglement with life, and the imagination's ability to feed, transform and give shape to experience. Finally, it is a terrific read--with all the suspense of a mystery (which it is also), the intrigue and humor of a social satire (which it is also), and the stark lyricism and metaphoric depth of a poem (of the plain-spoken, restrained variety). The characters drive the plot and are totally engaging and idiosyncratic, most especially Miranda, the protagonist. She is a stalwart, dreamy loner whose adventurous impulses seem driven by a desire to break out of her isolation. On route, there is disappointment but ultimately hope and complicated, dogged love--love between men and women, women and women, men and men, father and daughter. Love in Miranda's world is a force that clobbers or saves or sometimes both. Despite these sobering investigations, Sweeney maintains a light touch and a sense of exuberance. Did I mention that Among Other Things... is also a playful feminist revision of The Tempest? Do I need to give you any more reasons to read this book?

I enjoyed reading this book because her descriptions are vivid, particualarly the view of NYC through a young innocent girl's eyes.. one who has been isolated on an island without any true knowledge of the "real world". However, her character development of this young girl, whose mother died when she was too young too remember and is clouded by mystery, is more outstanding. Her portrayal of Miranda, a lonely creature, is so powerful, you can't help but empathize with her longing for intimacy. Trapped on an island with her emotionally absent father, with her only friend a local fisherman, she descirbes her daydream of becoming a tree with such vividness, that you can visualize the transformation in your minds eye. Her scholarly literary referecnes, particuarly to Ovids Metamorphosis (what her father is translating as his work)is an added bonus. My only complaint is that she didn't seem to finish the book! When I got to the ending, I thought "did she run out of paper?" After such a craftfully mastered piece, her ending seemed rushed... not well-thought out... as if she had a deadline to meet. That is my only dissapointment. I hope she writes another book with Miranda as the main character so the loose ends in this book are tied up.

It is not unusual for first novels to be of the "coming of age" variety. But seldom has anyone come of age the way that Miranda Donnal, the main character in Aoibheann Sweeney's first novel, manages to do it. Miranda, an only child, was taken to live on an isolated island about a mile off the coast of Maine when she was only two years old, and because her mother died not long after the family's arrival, she spent her formative years on the island with only her father and Mr. Blackwell, the family caretaker, as company.

Miranda's father isolated himself with his books and his lifetime project of producing a new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses and was not much of a father to Miranda, preferring to leave her to her own devices as long as she was always home for dinner and available to type up his latest pages of translation. Luckily for Miranda, Mr. Blackwell did have some paternal instincts and he came to love the child in a protective way that her father could never equal. It was Mr. Blackwell who made sure that Miranda was enrolled in school and who was there to take her by boat to the mainland every morning until she was old enough to handle the trip alone. And it was Mr. Blackwell who educated Miranda in the ways of life on the island during all the years when her father seldom seemed to think about her.

Despite this unusual upbringing, Miranda felt protective of her father and seemed to understand why he was incapable of expressing or showing his love for her. So when he surprised her after her high school graduation by arranging a job for her in New York City with his friends at the cultural institute he helped to found there before leaving for his new life in Maine, she exchanged her tiny island for a much larger one. And she found more there than she expected to find.

She found her father.

Clue by clue, she pieced together the life her father lived in New York and came to realize that he was nothing like the man she had imagined him to be all of her life. And, at the same time, she learned as much about herself. She found friends and she found lovers in New York City. Her problem was to decide which were which, and when she finally did that she was ready to begin the rest of her life.

Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking, is a frank presentation of how life sometimes surprises us just when we think we have it all figured out. Sweeney places the reader in this unusual world in a way that makes it understandable and to seem almost normal, a remarkable achievement.

I didn't really get to know any of the characters in this book, including the main character. She doesn't understand herself or anyone around her, and hers is the only voice, so the reader is left hanging. There is no action, only reaction. She spends the entire book wondering why her father doesn't love her, and then suddenly she decides that he does and the book ends abruptly.

On the plus side, the writing is pretty, so perhaps this author will mature into a good novelist.

I came on Amazon this morning to see if the author of this book had written anything else yet. The book still reasonates with me over a year after I read it.
When I read some of the negative reviews I had to add my two cents. This book was wonderful, beautifully written and I highly recommend it. I can't understand people writing anything bad about it, perhaps it was too well done and made people uncomfortable with issues they don't want to acknowledge?

This book has a lot going for it: complex/mysterious family dynamics, quirky characters, rural and urban locales, and excellent writing. Sweeney writes simply but you can tell she has chops. She just knows how to use them. This is a novel at it's best - while reading it, I felt a hum, like it was adding a dimension to my life. I can't wait until the next Sweeney novel

I loved this book! I couldn't put it down. I great first novel. I can only hope she gives another soon.

I loved this book. Beautifully written. Sweeney's style is staightforward and uncomplicated. Almost like poetry. A page turner but interweaves greek myths and Shakespearean theme in thought provoking way on top of fascinating and moving story of girl who chooses New York City over an island in Maine where she grew up alone with her father. Miranda's loneliness is heartwrenching as she searches for clues to who she is and what happened to her mother. This is a really special book. Easy to read but perfect gift for your book lover friends.

I was greatly disappointed to have put the time into reading a novel that was completely pointless. There was nothing redeeming in this book. The characters are vague and lifeless, there is no distinct plot, and the reader is left wondering what the purpose was of the story. I would absolutely not recommend this book.