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Nota de desambiguació:

(eng) Please do not combine this with the author page for Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake, who is a diffferent person.

Obres de Richard Starks

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
UK
Nota de desambiguació
Please do not combine this with the author page for Richard Stark/Donald E. Westlake, who is a diffferent person.

Membres

Ressenyes

This beautifully written novel takes place in Utah in the 1950s. The town of Paradox has just built an authentic looking town to try to lure the big movie studios to film their Westerns there. They are successful and the small town becomes a Mecca for films and tourists. This book is about the life of one of the residents -Corin.

As the novel begins, Corin's mother has just died and her father has sent her from their home in NYC to a small ranch outside of Paradox to live with an aunt that she has never met. Corin decides right from the beginning that she is going to hate Paradox and her aunt. When the studios start filming and she sees movie stars, Paradox begins to look better. Once she makes new friends and is popular in school she begins to really enjoy her life and starts working hard to make the ranch a success and get it out of the red. After dating a boy from school who is now a deputy, she meets and is immediately enthralled with Ark - a young man from England who always wanted to see where the Westerns were filmed. He is also a very intelligent astronomer. The town isn't real sure about him at first but they gradually accept him. Add to the mix, a Navajo who escaped from a prison work crew and you have everything you need for a fantastic character driven novel.

This novel ties a lot of threads together - growing up in a small Amazon village with missionary parents (Ark), growing up with a father who was a veterinarian (Corin), the pitfalls of cattle ranching, the gossip in a small town and how the town changes once the movies start filming, along with the racism and sexism of this time period. Everything is tied together and the novel has a sad but perfect ending. This book was full of fantastic characters as well as beautiful descriptions of the Utah desert. I hated to see it end and to say goodbye to characters that I'd come to know so well.

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
… (més)
 
Marcat
susan0316 | Feb 27, 2021 |
I would give this 3.5 stars, but since I can't do half stars, I'm rounding up.

I really liked the story, which is a twist on "Strangers on a Train". Like the movie, the main character in the book sees his life unravel after he makes a couple of bad decisions. Its almost like watching a row of dominoes fall because you happened to inadvertently bump into the first one. Once the story really got going, it was quite suspenseful and hard to put down.

There were three things that, in my opinion, inhibited the story.

First, most of the main characters were a bit flat. They didn't seem to have much personality until the story really picked up. Frankly, the bad guys were the ones who seemed the most real and interesting.

Second, there were too many detailed descriptions of mundane things, like food items and the vacuum cleaner, to the point where it got in the way of the story.

Third, the story didn't really get going until half way through the book. The first half seemed very mundane, which may be because of the previous first and second items.

This is a good read and well worth your time.
… (més)
 
Marcat
grandpahobo | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Sep 25, 2015 |
This books tells the story of 5 Airmen who wrecked their plane in Tibet flying over the "hump" from China back to India during WWII. It also goes into detail about the political ramifications their appearance caused in China and Tibet and the diplomatic reactions of the US and Britain. While the politics were important to give the big picture the review of politics and factions splintered the focus of the book.
 
Marcat
Chris_El | Mar 19, 2015 |
First I will admit I did not finish this book. For all the well-written and interesting facts it contained about monasteries, it also contains frequent, mean-spirited comments and observations against the Catholic Church which I found extremely annoying and offensive. If I had to guess, I would say Mr. Starks had been raised Catholic - or by Catholic hating people. Perhaps a well-meaning, and most likely wise nun had once slapped him silly in class for being a spoiled and troublesome little brat. Just sayin'… (més)
 
Marcat
repb | May 24, 2013 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
11
Membres
134
Popularitat
#151,727
Valoració
½ 3.6
Ressenyes
5
ISBN
16
Llengües
1

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