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131 of 147 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Departures., July 26, 2011
This review is from: The Leftovers (Hardcover)
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My only experience with Perrotta prior to this was two movies - Little Children, which I liked, and Election which I didn't. (EDIT: Re-watched Election, liked it much better the 2nd time.) His books definitely seem like something up my alley, but I'd never been compelled to pick one up. This one sounded ideal for me. I love the different portrayals authors make of those "left behind" or in this case, "Leftover." The prologue, for me, was genius. Absolutely hilarious. I thought it was setting the stage for what was going to be an uproarious social satire. It was not. Though there were moments of humor beyond the start, they were few and far between. What I found most about this book was that it was subtle. For a long while it felt to me like "The Stepford Wives: The Rapture Years". I'm not a plot point type of reviewer, so this is nothing that you can't read on the jacket copy. There was an event, and a lot people disappeared from the planet. But this isn't some kind of 12 Monkey's type world. It's about normal people, with cell phones and jobs, coming to terms with what happened, and moving on with their lives. The aftermath of the aftermath if you will. I was feeling really critical of the book because for a long time it felt so emotionless. Some people lost entire families, yet there was no grief. I didn't feel connected to anybody, and the back of the book said "a colorful cast of characters" and I just wasn't getting it, at all (with one minor exception.) And then it sort of transcended and all came together. And what felt subtle and emotionless as I was going through it, left me feeling ultimately as though I'd been on an emotional journey the whole time. Being unfamiliar with Perrotta's work, I'm not sure if this is par for his course. But I think that this book has potential to feel disappointing at points through the course of reading it. If it feels like that, I'd encourage you to stick with it. The book rarely veers from its subtlety, and I'm not promising a great ending ... But the way in which it evolved was quite masterful.
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53 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best Perrotta, but worth a look, August 3, 2011
This review is from: The Leftovers (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Tom Perrotta has the gift of a signature style. I could read his sentences, spare, ironic, laced with a bit of light humor, for forever. In a way, he's the John Cheever of this generation, charting without rancor the paths of today's suburban Wasps. His novels are a bit uneven in depth and execution, but they are always worth reading. In The Leftovers, Perrotta starts with the premise that a Rapture-like event has taken to heaven a spotty sampling of the world's population, the good, the bad, the Christian, the Moslem, the Hindu, the Jew, and the heathens. The novel is about the ones left over on Earth - in particular those in an American suburb - and how they cope with both the loss of their loved ones and the fact that they have been left behind. In a very real sense, this premise is a bit of an ironic joke or at least Perrotta treats it that way. I think that's the flaw in this novel. The narrative voice is a bit smirky and that leads to a fundamental conflict between the very tragic situation of the characters and the "oh-come-on-now" narration. It's hard to become invested in the characters' lives when the narrator holds back emotionally. Then there is the problem of the cliche turns of plot. Key characters join religious cults that have popped up after the demi-Rapture. A teen age girl becomes surly and hooks up with the wrong crowd in high school. The main character in this book - a jock male turned responsible adult - is a bit of a block of wood emotionally, which leads to further distancing on the part of the reader. I think every professional novelist ought to try their hand at an apocalyptic/dystopic novel. This book reminds me of another interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt that uses an end of the world premise, Malamud's God's Grace. Like Malamud, Perrotta is a very talented writer. Unlike Malamud after God's Grace, Perrotta has many years left to write. My guess is that his next book will be far better.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another triumph for Tom Perrotta, August 18, 2011
This review is from: The Leftovers (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I was extremely excited to be able to get a copy of "The Leftovers" from the Vine program. I am very much a fan of Tom Perrotta and thought "Little Children" was little short of a masterpiece. I am also a tremendous fan of "dystopian" fiction. And I was particularly intrigued to see how these two things would come together in one book, as they seemed almost antithetical, given Perrotta's mastery of the realistic. Interestingly, they came together like a hand in a glove, as Perrotta uses the premise of a Rapture-like event to illuminate human behavior in ordinary circumstances. In many cases, one can see several of the characters in "The Leftovers" being in much the same place they are in this novel had the key event never occurred. Nevertheless, the Rapture-like event never feels like a gimmick. Unlike other Tom Perrotta novels, "The Leftovers" is not a particularly plot-driven book. That being said, the last half of the novel was as much of a "page-turner" as the riveting "Little Children." I was eager to see where the characters and the book were going. While the novel ends without any sort of tying up of loose ends, it did feel -- for the most part -- as though it ended as it should and provided as much "closure" as was appropriate for this story. But Perrotta could just as easily have kept the book going without losing the momentum he had developed. I say that the novel felt properly concluded "for the most part" because there is one plot line that seems to have been cut short and left inexplicable. In all other respects, any "loose ends" are merely those that occur in real life as life goes on. "The Leftovers" is written in Perrotta's typical direct style, with lean but often evocative prose. And it is not without its fair share of humor, as well. I recommend the novel highly to any fan of Tom Perrotta and to any fan of good, contemporary fiction.
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