Motherless Brooklyn

Great read, with language that went spinning through my head for days. Jonathan Lethem has a gift for patterning and phrase. I found some parts of the plot less than convincing, but I was happy to be along for the ride. ( )

Loved it. The voice is unique, funny and tragic, and now I'm hoping the author's other books are as enjoyable. ( )

Noir with a twist. The book worked for me until it didn't. After awhile the tic-ing and the Tourette's interfered with my ability to maintain interest in the story. ( )

An enjoyable take on the hardboiled mystery - familiar enough to feel cozy, but strange enough to feel new. The Tourette's characterizations triggered some of my own tics while reading. ( )

The thing this book does beautifully is to make you feel like you've inhabited a different sort of mind. It's sort of a detective story, but the real appeal is in how you experience the view from behind the eyes of a narrator whose internal (and external) mono/dialogue is so very different from your own. It's lyrical and lovely and playful and sometimes a little heartbreaking. Lethem here takes a familiar genre -- the detective story -- and enlivens it by tweaking the style and replacing (self-consciously) the verbal tics of that genre with the verbal tics of the unusual narrator. I enjoyed this one a lot. It's the third Lethem book I've read, and I figure he's three for three so far. ( )