Customer Reviews

What She Saw...: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I really enjoyed What She Saw.... I thought it was a very well-written piece of work, despite the fact that the main character, Phoebe, has serious issues. Lucinda Rosenfeld has done a wonderful job with this novel, and I will be sure to look out for her next offering.

Phoebe Fine begins her story in the late 70s during her fifth grade year in school. The boy's name is Roger "Stinky" Mancuso, and Phoebe has a crush on him that won't quit. However, Stinky becomes more than just a dream for Phoebe, in ways both good and bad, and this experience becomes the stepping stone for a long and twisted journey.

What She Saw... takes the reader through the odyssey that is Phoebe's love life. It is interesting to watch Phoebe grow up before our eyes, beginning with a sweet, curious kid to a messed-up adult still in search of love and fulfillment. The men that come into Phoebe's life sometimes stay, most often go, but always leave behind a piece of themselves that Phoebe carries with her. It is also interesting to see how each relationship develops and how, ultimately, they crumble. By the book's end, readers are left wondering about Phoebe -- does she make it; does she find true love; does she finally mature and realize that she is more than just the other half of a man?

I recommend this novel with confidence. However, it won't be for everyone. Phoebe is not a wholly likeable character. She is quite frustrating at times. But she is also human with the most basic of desires -- to find love and be loved in return. I could relate to Phoebe on this level, and I think that is the part that cinched the book for me. What She Saw... is indeed a wild ride, but definitely one worth taking.

Soon after I read this book, I tossed it out along with my retro polyester pants and orange creepers. The concept of the novel is a clever one and it starts out as being cute and funny. Even as a gay male, I could identify with Phoebe and a lot of her unwise choices in men.

Then somewhere along the line, the book loses what little bit of charm it has and suddenly you're finding yourself not liking Phoebe that much. As each man revolves his way through her life, you begin to dislike her and her choices more and more. Some of the boyfriends listed aren't even boyfriends but rather fantasy characters, penpals and in the case of Arnold Allen (the only Black guy who stereotypically appears on her list) a criminal. By the end of the novel you're thinking that she deserves everything that has happened to her. Some guys aren't good enough, others are too good and why doesn't she have any friends? One word for you Phoebe: THERAPY!!

At first I thought this was going to be a Sheila Levine for the new millenium. Whereas Sheila's self-depreciating humor and poor choices in men endeared you to her, Phoebe's self depreciating humor had you hoping she would grab a bottle of sleeping pills and end it all. I guess Mrs. Rosenfeld is a fairly talented writer as she was able to evoke such dislike for her protagonist from me, but overall this novel went absolutely nowhere and was a complete waste of my time. I liked Bridget Jones better and that's a stretch. I wouldn't really recommend this to book anyone. If you can find a copy, check out Gail Parent's 'Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York'. Although it's well over trhity years old now, it still maintains a crisp, hip, cutting edge feel to it unsurpassed by any other writer writing in the same vein as What She Saw.

I read Lucinda Rosenfeld's "What She Saw..." in one night, and it was like riding a roller coaster. At times, it was exhilirating and refreshing, funny and insightful, at other times it dragged beyond belief, and I couldn't wait to move on to the next chapter/guy. Not surprisingly, the characters and stories Rosenfeld clearly spent more time and thought developing (Spitty Clark, Humphrey Fung, Bruce Bledstone -especially Spitty Clark!) were the best and most interesting aspects of the book. The others (i.e., Kevin McFeeley, Arnold Allen) should have been left out completely; instead, they were brushed over in perfunctory, seemingly obligatory fashion. Certainly a better read would have been one that narrowed the list of ex-boyfriends to the few who played important roles in the character development of Rosenfeld's protagonist, Phoebe Fine. That way, their interrelation could have been explored and examined in greater detail. Nevertheless, Rosenfeld is a terrific writer, and I found myself laughing out loud at times. She just has to work on putting it all together in her next work, which I look forward to reading.

This book reads like a cross between Welcome to the Dollhouse and a John Hughes movie. It is funny and brutally honest look at the trouble in looking for yourself in relationships. This has a great, self knowing heroine and is an andedote to all of the glossy girls dating books out there. The eighties stuff is hilarious to anyone who lived through roller disco, pac man and leg warmers. This is not a perfect book, but it sure was quirky, smart and fun to read.

Though extremely refreshing and witty during the first few vignettes, Rosenfeld's tiring dissertation in her repertoire of ex boyfriends and crushes become rather dreary and flat towards the end. I began to dislike the main character more and more as I witnessed her self-loathing and over self-analysis throughout the pages. At one point you just need her to start loving herself and get over it, so to speak. Perhaps its not about what she saw in Spitty Clark "The Gentle Rapist" or Humphrey Fung or Jack Geezo, but rather what she doesn't want to see in herself. Rosenfeld however does exhibit great moments in her prose when she is able to capture the awkwardness and timidnes of sexual intimacy, especially during the formidable teenage years. She also has a great hand at characterization. Nonetheless, a fair read (especially for post-break up times) even if one doesn't read all the way through.

This book is well worth reading, and it may be one of those that has a long, long life. Rosenfeld has a very sharp and very sympathetic eye, and her portrait of Phoebe Fine is both appealling and--later in Phoebe's quest--troubling. While the details are fun and absolutely on target, the novel goes well beyond being a simple period piece, a bit of Gen X, coming-of-age nostalgia. Don't be misled by the opening "chapters." This is much more than a book about someone in the fifth (or any) grade, though those parts are superbly evocative and essential to the story. Phoebe Fine, in her own way, travels the same twisted paths that most of us have. But don't look for a neat resolution. It's too true to itself for that.

Haven't we all gone through a list of our boyfriends and/or crushes, to figure out why we were attracted to them in the first place? Lucinda Rosenfield has based her book on just that element of a woman's life, from the first crush to the latest man. While Phoebe does have issues of her own to deal with, it is quite interesting and humorous to see each man described by her.

This was a first novel for Lucinda Rosenfield, and a good one at that. Looking forward to future works!

Wherein we observe the development of a girl from 5th grade to about age 27, a girl that we eventually realize is quite attractive, though she has the persistent belief that she's a Dawn Weiner. It could make a great film. While I think Lucinda Rosenfeld has a good ear for dialogue and gives us painfully well-executed visuals, to the point where I felt I had been there myself (because, what young self-involved American female hasn't?) I thought the writing tired and too desperately-trying-to-be-trendy. It's the kind of book that would've made an impression about 10-15 years ago, but now the market is just too saturated, and let's face it - descriptive language a la Confederacy of Dunces has been immitated ad nauseum. Judging by the age of the character, Rosenfeld probably did write like this 10 years ago (in college), so it's too bad she didn't try to get it published then. Now, though, I think she'd be great writing for current female TV characters -- could give them something interesting for us to watch!

This marginally entertaining "novel" is a shining example of big publishing bandwagon-jumping. (Its antecedents are Sex and the City, Bridget Jones' Diary and The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing.) It is peppered with thinly drawn characters with obvious names like Holly Flake and Spitty Clark and lazy, self-satisfied lines like "She couldn't imagine a time in life she'd ever aspired to going anywhere--except maybe back to sleep." Rosenfeld does a pretty good job bringing to life Phoebe Fine's many neuroses, but to what end? Any tension she creates is almost immediately dismissed, as in the case of Spitty Clark, an aging frat guy who may or may not have committed rape. How does Phoebe Fine deal with this knowledge? She offers herself to him sexually after a miserable Greek formal but is spared consummation when Spitty vomits during their make out session. Two pages later it's on to another ill-fated relationship, again defined by Phoebe Fine's predictable insecurities her current male foil's supposedly humorous one-dimensionality. It all goes on far too long and none of it is particularly inspired. I was excited by the Pablo Miles section when I read it recently in The New Yorker, but whatever charm that piece may have had on its own is not enough to sustain a novel. What She Saw reads less like a finely constructed piece of literature and more like an ambitious grad school manuscript. Look for the movie sometime next summer.

This book was very well written. I think Lucinda Rosenfeld is a talented author, and I will look for other books by her. That said, I found the book to be a "much of a muchness." In ten years, (age 16 - 26) Phoebe Fine never seemed to grow up, mature, reflect, or just grow, period. By the 10th or 12th man, I was a bit tired of her go nowhere, do nothing, victim mentality. I was also a bit tired of the men she chose--- never really seeing what she DID see in them. I'd give the writing style 5-stars, and the first half of the book 4-stars, but it was too much of the same thing to be more than a 3-star book overall.
Certainly worth reading though.