Customer Reviews

The Elegant Gathering Of White Snows

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

Ms. Radish has a wonderful message, but her writing is so amateur that all you can't see the message for the soap box.

My book club picked this book and that's the only reason I'm still plodding through it. We picked it because of the premise of the book: women bonding, overcoming pain and loss etc., etc. But it's one of the most poorly written books I've read in a long time. Every page screams: "Where was the EDITOR of this thing??".

Want an example? Here you go: Page 5, 3rd paragraph: "As the women talk, they don't see themselves as separate entities even though they are each as different from one another as the proverbial fish is to the bicycle." HUH?????

Also, the book is over-run with unnecessary details that should have been "red penned": Page 140, 4th paragraph: "At the bottom of the bag are two bottles of wine, the same kind they had at Susan's house the day they left." Why do we need to know this?

There are hundreds of examples of what seem to be attempts at colorful language but result in a reaction of "huh?" : page 135, 5th paragraph: "The disgusting echoes of cars roaring past on the highway sounded as if a convoy was stalking the women walkers". DISGUSTING echoes????

With good editing, this book would have been half as long and maybe twice as interesting. Anyone who has ever read Alice Hoffman, Ann Tyler or Kaye Gibbons knows what I'm talking about. Their writing makes you CARE what happens to the characters.

To the reviewer who surmised that the negative reviews of this book were coming from young folks without much life experience: I'm 62 years old and have been around the block a few times, and I'm here to tell you that this book ain't the real world, baby.

I'm willing to suspend belief for a well-written book, but not for one that makes me wish I had a red pen in my hand to "cut and slash" and get to the heart of the matter.

This is not the type of book I would have chosen to read. I reluctantly bought it when my book club chose it as their next selection. Even though it looked goofy and sentimental, I cautioned myself not to "judge a book by its cover".

Reading this book is excruciating. The cliches are so embarrassing and juvenile, the premise so stupid, the characterization so predictible, and the flashbacks so maudlin, that I would give up if I had not wasted eleven dollars buying this paperback.

There must literally be a dozen cliches to the page. All women are victims. Men are abusive, sex-crazed, needy. Even the physical types of the women are cliched. The tough, hard-working Lenny has to wear cowboy boots and Southwestern silver jewelry. She has long black hair. I could have guessed it all without even reading. The world-weary journalist has to be tall and big-boned, hence ugly. Very feminist, Ms. Radish.

I can scarcely get through a paragraph without groaning in disgust. A father who shrugs off the brutal rape of his daughter, little boys who get off on spying on their mother in her underwear- these anecdotes are so distasteful, so unrealistic, and so hysterical that I am only left to ponder what bizzare issues this author must have.

I have no empathy for the underdeveloped, boozy, dull, whiny, selfish, and stupid protagonists. In fact, I may hate them. Nancy Drew was a more nuanced character.

The prose, like the theme, is insipid. Worse, the writing is so unpolished that I wonder if this author ever took a Comp 101 class. Nearly every sentence contains an awkward redundancy. I feel like I am trudging through quicksand.

I am not sure what the author's purpose is, beyond an unsubtle lecture on "feminism". Probably Ms. Radish is very earnest in her desire to portray women bonding, escaping the patriarchy, and so on, but her writing is frankly awful. I have to wonder if this book went through more than one or two drafts. I also think that a well-written book should appeal to both sexes. I am very dubious that any man could make it through this tortuous and insulting manuscript.

This book is a real embarrassment, from the pretentious title to the facile plot and characterizations. The author displays an astounding superficiality in her treatment of themes and characters. Despite all this, I think the very worst aspect of this book is the author's transparent attempts to "inspire" with her twaddle.

I have never returned a book in my life, and I must have over 10,000 titles in my house. This will be the very first book I have ever brought back to the store. Yes, it's that bad.

I kept notes on my bookmark as I progressed through this book so that I could remember specifically why I disliked it, and report this to my book club which had selected it. Words and phrases I jotted down included, "melodramatic...unconvincing characters and story...don't care about the characters... cliches... unoriginal ideas... similar voices [characters]all the same." If it hadn't been "assigned reading" I would have never spent the time on this book. As I read along, I did search for something redeeming. There were definitely some worthwhile ideas here and there. Too bad they were buried and lost in this book.

Although I think the author was trying to write a very "deep message" book, it came off as superficial, trite and ridiculous.

Our reading group chose for this book out of curiousity based on the synopsis. Several of us didn't even bother to finish it. NO ONE liked it. This is the first book we've read in over 4 years that we all universally disliked. There are 8 women in our reading group between the ages of 35 and 70. We determined that the author was exploiting all of the women's issues she could possibly fit into this book (date rape, loss of a child, unwanted pregnancy, lesbianism, depression)just to grab attention to this book. And then she wraps it all up and fixes everything by having these women go on some ridiculous walk for 4 days. I suspect any positive reviews for this book were written by the author herself or her publishers. Do not buy this book. If you want to read some lightweight stuff, read a good mystery or even a romance novel. This is junk. One of the few books I would happily throw in the trash without a second thought!

This is the worst book I have read in recent history. The author needs to take some classes on how to write a readable book; the characters are so poorly presented I felt like I was grading a middle school writing assignment. I would give this effort an "F". If this is supposed to be empowering to women, I am ashamed to be one. Never have I read a book that made me roll my eyes with each new page of the whining, hollow and self centered characters that I was presented with. If you want empowerment, look elsewhere!

Count me as one who really wanted to love this book at onset. And why wouldn't I? Here's some women who feel they've been done wrong, and decide to just up and leave, no rhyme or reason, but just go with the flow. So what's so terribly wrong about that? And why did I finish this book solely because it was my book club's choice?

It's that the author chooses to tell these women's tales one by one as they walk through the countryside. Unlike Canterbury Tales, this pilgramage has neither destination nor actual point. The women seem to be waiting for a divine revelation of where they are going and what they are accomplishing. But if there's some underlying religious symbolism, it's tough to decipher, despite the quotes of alleged interviewed clerics wgi hint at some supernatural cause for their sojourn.

What bothered me most in this good idea gone awry was the writer's insistence in using the crassest, basest language in nearly every character's interior monologue. I've known women all over the States from every walk of life, and rarely do I find any that use such vulgarisms so consistently as this pack. It's this general inelegance, this reduction to some imagined idiom of a downtrodden but soon-to-be-liberated woman, that makes this book wholly unbelievable.

Forget that it has to be an extremely slow news day for the world's media to be engrossed in a rural trek across Wisconsin. I doubt that even the hometown weekly would bother to post reporters day by day along the route.

I had expected so much better from a professional writer like Radish.

If you are a lesbian, a manhater, or a voyeur of women's unsolved problems, you may like this book. If not, look elsewhere for a good read.

The author insults readers' intelligence with an undeveloped plot, amateurish writing, and redundancy that would make a high school English teacher cringe.

So why did I continue reading? I did find the book to have one redeeming value-- it was an excellent remedy for insommnia.

I have to agree with the negative reviews of this book. As one reviewer said, "Doesn't she have an editor?" Way too many inconsistencies in the details. For example, Mary is a senior in High School in the Spring of 1968. That would make her born in 1950, correct? But in 2002, when the walk is taking place, she looks in the mirror "watching myself push toward my 48th year for the 47 years in front of that". This is simple math and the kind of detail that drives me nuts. Also, the person that flew into Milwaukee to get to Prairie du Chien. Highly unlikely. The geography doesn't mean anything to someone not from Wisconsin, but if you're going to put it in, have it make sense to those of us that live here. So this is all nit-picky, but the story itself was a drain, and to also agree with another reviewer, seems to take the viewpoint that all of women's problems can be solved by having a lesbian relationship. Okaaaayyyyyy.............Save your time and your money and skip this one.

Please save your money and do not purchase this book. It is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read--if I were able to finish the whole thing. I usually end up launching the book across the room when I run into another one of the sappy, superficial, poorly constructed "tales of woe." The characters are incomplete, the plot, while interesting enough to draw someone to the book, is about as well constructed as a two year old's house of blocks. I am unwilling to list all the flaws I found--I fear carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a very harsh review and I feel bad for the author, but I feel worse for the editor who let her think this was an example of "good" writing. I guess they will publish anything. I hope the author made enough money with this book to compensate her for these public criticisms as I would hate to be in her shoes.

What a stinker! "The Elegant Gathering of White Snows" is a story about how seven women get together for a "whine" fest and somehow all telepathically come to the same decision to chuck their families, jobs, responsibilities, problems, and lives, and start walking on a rural Wisconsin highway until such time as they experience some kind of simultaneous group epiphany and return home as changed women. I picked up the book because the premise sounded promising, but this book absolutely does not deliver. The characters are flat, if somewhat despicable, and don't inspire any sort of sympathy. In fact, an underlying message in this book seems to be "if it feels good, do it." Never mind that you're warping your kids ... it's all about YOU.

Among other problems, there is a notable lack of description of the country side the women are walking through so that the story really seems to take place in some sort of void. Also, a couple of new characters are introduced throughout that simply drop out of the story without explanation, like a female reporter that changes into her grubbies so she can tag along but never makes another appearance. Parts of the book read like a cheesy pulp romance. There was definitely some overuse of the words heart, beating heart, touch, whisper, beautiful, and soul, frequently used in corny metaphors and similes that made no sense. Even the title of the book was garnished from a tea reference made by one of the characters that doesn't tie in to anyone or anything else in the story.

I'm all for "girl power" and I understand the special bonds we women share. "The Elegant Gathering of White Snows" fails
to capture any sort of spirit of sisterhood and has only inspired me to read a chapter or two of a book from now on, before I actually spend money on it.

If you're looking for a story with strong likable female characters who overcome life's trials and draw strength from one another, go rent "Steel Magnolias." If you're hoping for a story with interesting quirky characters that hit the road together, pull out your high school copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."