Songs in Ordinary Time [Audio Cassette]

Mary McGarry Morris (Author), Frances Cassidy (Narrator)

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0736637435
• ISBN-13: 978-0736637435
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (274 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,033,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I CAN'T BELIEVE I READ THE WHOLE THING!, February 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Songs in Ordinary Time (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

I purchased this book because I trusted Oprah's judgment, and I wanted a long book to get lost in during summer '99. Well, it is now February 2000. Through great discipline on my part, I'm finally finished. I feel gypped. There were so many extraneous characters, and their fates were never disclosed. Why introduce characters when they ultimately fizzle out? Why couldn't the author spend more time giving insight into the main characters? Reading this book made me feel voyeuristic. There was a lot of surface "dirt," and I was frustrated by not knowing what made the characters tick. The adults were despicable: sleazy Omar, irresponsible Sam, needy/abusive Marie (I'm no shrink - was she manic-depressive?), among other losers. However, my heart broke for the children. I truly cared about Alice, Norm and Benjy; and I was pleased that the story ended somewhat optimistically - for Alice, at least.

This book should come with a warning: Only read it if you're too happy. It's guaranteed to bring your mood down several notches.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you have patience..., December 23, 2002

By 

Theresa W (mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs in Ordinary Time (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

If you can get through the first 150 pages, you'll be happy you did. With a slow start, that's when the story really starts to pick up & you start to remember the characters, there's a lot of them! I agree with an earlier reviewer in that there were too many sub-plots & characters.
I did end up liking the book, and I was VERY close to putting it down & not finishing it. I am glad I stuck it out.
The characters are memorable. Their plights, long & hard.
You will cringe with them when things go wrong. It's a story that is so believable it feels real. I see why Oprah picked it.
Just remember, there are many books that start off slow, but they don't always have such a rewarding ending.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Knowing the setting isn't everything, January 11, 1999

By 

B. Michael Harlow ([e-mail]) (Vermont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Songs in Ordinary Time (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

A friend who lives in nearby Rutland, Vermont, loaned me this book because she had loved it. I should trust her taste. I guess I'm a snob because knowing it was an "Oprah Book" and that its setting was Rutland, Vermont (thinly disguised as "Atkinson, VT") slowed down my beginning to read it; I'd had it for a year before guilt set me going once my friend had asked so much whether I'd started it yet. I loved it! It is not a layered piece of philosophic artistry, but the characters are so true and the honest striving of so many of them is so palpable that I'll buy a copy for my classroom library. These people are flawed, for sure, but most of them are striving mightily to live a good, moral life, especially Marie Fermoyle, whose kids probably see her as mean. But the novelist's keen and unflinching sympathies let us see a woman in a hard place trying to do right even if she does not always succeed. I found many scenes very profound emotionally, especially the scene where Benjy wants to drown [285--6] and the scene in which Benjy tells his brother Norm the truth [438]. Many of my favorite scenes involved Benjy, the youngest Fermoyle who just wants his mother to be happy, but who carries the load of so many secrets. I also loved occasional descriptions such as this: "Her perfume smelled of roses and wrinkled dollar bills." [502] The language does not often call attention to itself, but the characters are unfailingly well-observed and believable. There are enough psychologically complex but accessible characterizations to fill a family's social circle in a small city like Rutland. The book also unfolds slowly enough that a reader can really get the sense of the passage of time in the summer of 1960. I moved to Rutland ten years later in 1970, but it was still essentially the town from whose Catholic high school Morris had graduated in 1957. Knowing the geography, however, is not the main pleasure of the novel; its compassionate and accurate reach goes well beyond merely regional items.