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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short stories that focus on the darker side of love, August 28, 2003
With her stories of infidelity, divorce, and sexual harassment/assault, author Sue Miller delves into the darker side of love and relationships. In the title story of this book, she describes the desperate attempts of a boy from "the wrong side of the tracks" to reinvent himself as part of a local wealthy family, the Abbotts. He dates the three Abbott daughters in turn, with each relationship ending in a bigger disaster than the last one. (Fans of the movie, take note: this is NOT a love story, and the role of the younger brother--Joaquim Phoenix in the movie--is little more than that of the story's narrator here.) The next two stories, "Tyler and Brina," and "Appropriate Affect," address both the obvious and the more hidden costs of infidelity. Explicit photographs play a role in "Slides" and "Travel," while the stories "What Ernest Says," "Calling," and "The Birds and the Bees" cover even darker sexual subjects. The stories, while engrossing, are somewhat unpolished: the first story, "Inventing the Abbotts," could have easily been a novel on its own, and the final story, "The Quality of Life," seems to end abruptly and awkwardly. At 180 pages, however, this book is a quick read, and the reader is unlikely to feel that his or her time has been wasted.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Intriguing, Charming, Refreshingly Good Read, September 29, 2002
I bought this book soon after watching the movie that shares its name...And I just have to say that the movie, "Inventing the Abbots", is not near as compelling nor as convincing as Miller's version. Not to mention, that the remaining collection of stories in her book are all astounding! The details she brings to her characters make every story in this book so heartfelt and poignant...It is a must-read for every serious lover of literature! For Miller is a novelist that brings these characters to life with such candor, and explores the frailty of human nature and the darkness that lies somewhere in us all.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wow, reviewers, why all the hate?, March 1, 2010
I quite liked this. I put this sentence first because I was quite surprised at the negative reviews on this amazon.com page--the stories were quite entertaining, the characters and settings real, the plots weren't too complex. Yes, to some people that may be boring, but gracious, these stories are character studies. Having read one too many (that is, one and a half) Nicholas Sparks books, where the characters are all rugged but gorgeous, independently wealthy, gourmet cooks and flat, flat, flat--how delightful to read about a man in love with a woman who has a 'half frozen face' and can't contain his love to one person, no matter how much he loves her. True and real, and her words are sheer poetry. In "Calling," for instance, is this : She poured herself another cup of coffee and sat down at the table opposite him. She looked out of the apartment window at the dead geranium on her fire escape. A sparrow stood on the rim of the pot and puffed itself up.
I just love that. The geranium is dead. The sparrow "puffed itself up." I'm tired of reading these bestseller novels where you only read what happens and not what characters think and feel. He sat down. She sat down. He wore a grey shirt... blah blah blah. Everything is pretty and wrapped up in a nice little package, and usually coffee and beer are described in words that are not coffee and beer but "brew" and "hot liquid," or the pronunciation of a name is slipped into the book, usually 70 pages in when you've established it in your head already. Sue Miller writes about normal people with amazing insight.
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