Customer Reviews

Pigtopia

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This little gem of a book is an absolute knockout! It will stand with classics such as The Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, Beauty and the Beast (in a macabre way) and more. NOT for the reader who has a low tolerance for gore. Fascinating double narration by the two main characters. Wildly creative. Unless the book bigots object, and they are sure to do so, it will top the middle and high school reading lists and should be equally popular with adults. Remember, there are some very gory descriptions (more imagined in the mind of the reader than actually described), so don't read it after a nice meal. SIX stars!

Jack Plum was born disfigured and labeled a monster by an abusive mother - but he's created a haven in his cellar, shared with his beloved pet pigs - and is happy until he meets neighbor Holly, who changes his world for the better until the outside intervenes. A sensitive, moving tale of a sheltered boy's entry into a non-abusive world will attract a wide range of leisure readers.

My wife bought me this book plus 4 others for my Birthday last June. This was the last of those books that I read and little did I know that I had saved BEST for last! Just a great book! I won't get into the story here because I feel too many reviews give away too much of the plot. Just pick this one up! You won't regret it!

This fine work of literature is suspenseful yet thought provoking. From the back cover description I knew that the relationship between the teenaged girl and a thirty year old freak who looks like a pig and secretly keeps pigs couldn't last. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out how it would all end, and Ms. Fitzgerald did a good job keeping up the suspense.

There was plenty of food for thought as well making one think of man's inhumanity and discrimination towards other men. For example this quote from Jack Plum (the pig boy). "To fetch resting I think in on piglegends for calming. It is said of Quinling, what made first humanpig bonding, long time back--maybe he had not, then pigs would not get butchered. The reckoning of this was, coming full aware of pig cleverness, humankind did have reason to slaughter. This is as some tribe persons did have reason to slaughter. This is as some tribe persons did to eat of strong enemy people and take in their strengths. And it is also reasoned to keep pigs in a down place, cast away of no acknowledgement."

Later on in the book Holly Lock reaches puberty shortly before she is forced to give up the pig palace. One could see the story as a passage from childhood to adulthood.

The meaning of the ending left me wondering and dreaming. (I'm not really sure I got it.) But it was good nonetheless.

The prose is a pleasure to read. It was a good idea to bounce back and forth from the pig boy's narration to Holly Lock's. Reading the pig boy's language non-stop for 250 pages would have been tough.

The characters are far the most part realistic. The wicked mother in the wheelchair could be considered an easy stereotype, but there is nothing wrong with that. I've been accused of using easy stereotypes myself. Disabled people are often used as villians because their physical disability supposedly makes them twisted in some way. It's time to retire that device, but it doesn't really hurt this beautiful book at all.

Mark Gelbart
author of Talk Radio, the book feared by radio talk show hosts
www.mark-gelbart.com

This book just didn't quite speak to me. I guess it just felt a little like a sledgehammer to the head. The two main characters just don't ring true. Jack, a beaten-down handicapped man in his thirties, has all the wisdom you could ever hope for. But where did he learn all this observational insight? He has lived his entire life in isolation. His friend, Holly, grows mature by the minute just by being around him.

Both characters narrate the story which, at first, seemed inventive. But, eventually, it grew wearying to see their narration of the same events create giant leaps in the development time and time again.

I was shocked to see 9 reviews each scored with 5 stars when I looked this book up here. Apparently, I am the one dissenting opinion. So, I have to admit I may have missed something that appealed to others. I felt the same way about The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. So many people loved it, but I just didn't understand the appeal.

I bought this in the UK on the way home.It swept me off my feet. I couldn't put it down. The stylish device of the two narrators with totally different voices viewing the same time period is amazing, especially the unique voice of the wonderful Jack Plum. It's a voice designed through isolation and yearning and cuts right to the heart. This is a story of reaching out for love and in the process losing innocence. It has a gothic sweep with macabre elements but is essentially a fable for our times when greed and short sightedness is eroding our humanity to each other. It should be essential reading for anyone over 13 years old.

I was so surprised at the good reading provided by this book. I saw it on the "new author" shelf, and I am fond of pigs - the only reason. The dialect of the main character was so much fun to decipher, and having it appear only every other chapter, made it fun to read. There was some very important and valuable philosphy spoken by Jack.

Jack Plum is about as different as they come. Most of the book is written from his perspective. He's a thirty-something, uneducated man-boy who has a very large head, an abusive mother (who blames his malformation for her being bound to a wheelchair), and a deep kinship and understanding of pigs. Yes, hogs. In fact, between caring for his mother, Jack has created a special place below their house, a walk-out cellar leading to the woods out back, where his pig "tribe" dwells. His pigs are his friends and his family. The only human love Jack has ever known was from his father, who has been gone for years. His mother tells him it's his fault his father abandoned them. When Jack decides to befriend Holly Lock, a teenaged neighbor girl, things change in ways he'd never expected.

I really enjoyed this book. It took a couple of chapters for me to sink into his jargon and understand him, but once I did, it was amazing. Something like one of those emails designed to show you how your brain can still read with all the letters in words jumbled. I can't really call it literary fiction, because, well, I liked it and I don't generally care for literary pompousness. It's just general fiction with very deep point of view. Nicely done. A nice change from "the usual" for me.

This book is a Nice Bang for Your Entertainment Buck. Well worth your time and money, but not one you'll have to keep around. Pass it on to someone who'll enjoy it and keep the author on your radar.

Fitzgerald creates a world into which the reader is quickly drawn. The syntax and unique perspectives of Jack's parlance are thoroughly engaging, requiring a bit of work on the part of the reader, but it is definitely worth the effort. You know where this story is going, but can't help hoping for a miracle. I felt quiet when I finished reading the story. I highly recommend this novel.

This is a beautiful story. It's now one of my very favorite books. This is a story that will fascinate any reader. I read it in one sitting.