Customer Reviews

Sun City

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Set in a private Floridian rest home called the Berkley Arms, "Sun City" is a tale of how many of America's elderly are spending their last days.

Long admired for her "Moomin" books, Tove Jansson writes about the daily lives of a handful of retirees and the staff that provides for them. There's Thomson, the woman-hating recluse whose hobby is to write scathing reviews in the margins of library books before returning them; Mrs. Rubenstein, who believes enjoyment must be tempered with suffering to be real; Peabody, a mousy woman who feels guilty about everything, and a host of other folks who come complete with assorted quirks and closely guarded pasts.

Just like in her children's books, Jansson's style is witty and uncluttered. She doles out enough snippets of the characters' earlier lives to maintain the reader's interest and never indulges in "we have to change the system" bombast.

An excellent contrast to her earlier work, "The Summer Book".