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Title: Plant Life by PAMELA DUNCAN ISBN: 0-385-33526-1 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 27 April, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good read
Comment: While the novel started out pretty formulaic (and to some degree continued that way throughout the book, but hey--some people like their books that way) I liked the fact that it focused on and told the stories of working class southern women. These type stories are really just starting to be published in any sort of critical mass. While she doesn't pack the punch of a Dorothy Allison, Pamela Duncan does spend the time to flesh out the characters and focus on the issues that affect their lives. Anyone who's spent any time on that rung of the socioeconomic ladder will recognize the personality politics, the paycheck to paycheck existence, and complete lack of security or knowledge of what the future will hold.
That being said, did anyone else wonder what the point was to have Hap Luckadoo as a character?! Overall the book is a good foray into southern chick-lit and it's an easy read.You can put it down for a day or two and when you pick it up again you don't have any problems picking right up where you left off.
Rating: 3
Summary: Stunning storytelling, but some gaps...
Comment: Laurel is far from the stereotypical character in women's lit that looks to take revenge out on mankind for screwing her over or dumping her. However, her indecisiveness and tentative reactions made her less than fully likeable for me. I did appreciate her strength in handling rejection by suitor Joe and found her outburst with her ex-husband's new wife Deedee in the store to be quite realistic (I felt embarrassed for her). Those moments of embarrassment made her seem like a true woman: imperfect.
I found Duncan's secondary character asides to be mostly dull and lacking any information necessary to supplement a vigorous plot. Though well-intentioned, these reminiscences spun the older generation of woman characters do little to help the reader get into the heads of them. The secondary characters, particularly Maxann, were conceived well enough to not need the additional background provided in the memory asides.
Duncan's gentle capture of local dialect proves that her ear is well-honed to the sounds around her. I could hear Maxann drawling, Idalene chastising, and Pansy speaking as if they were in the room with me.
I enjoyed the small details that Duncan obviously planned long and hard. The Lurch-like attendant in the rest home that thinks he still works in a funeral parlor and becomes frightened each time a patient moves is so creative as to have to be a real event in Duncan's life.
Although it seems that Duncan avoided anything too "dirty" or controversial (i.e. sex) to the point of being painfully obvious, it was nice to read a book where I couldn't predict that ending (for instance: the reaction of one character who gets shot in the stomach by her drunken husband). There were a few "broken links" in the story that while made me think "You go girl!" at the time, made my mind race at the end. "Well, what happened?"
Mostly, I enjoyed Plant Life. At times it was tough to wade through all the flashbacks. I would have enjoyed it more 100 pages shorter and perhaps with an epilogue that seemed less a jagged edge: this one was sort of "Thelma & Louise" for my cut-and-dry taste. It puts a period where a comma should be, though you can't help but to smile to wonder the characters' futures.
Rating: 4
Summary: It'll grow on 'ya!
Comment: Plant Life has everything you want in an engaging novel: warmth, humor, quirky characters, a small town you'd like to visit, and some down-home observations about life and love. Thoroughly enjoyable! As an author myself, of NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL, I especially appreciated the loving and complex bonds between mothers and their children. Plant yourself on the front porch, put your feet up, and head south!
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Title: Moon Women by Pamela Duncan ISBN: 0385335210 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 30 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Place Called Wiregrass by Michael Morris ISBN: 1589199669 Publisher: RiverOak Publishing Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: The Midwife's Tale by Gretchen Moran Laskas ISBN: 0385335512 Publisher: Dial Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Salt: A Novel by Isabel Zuber ISBN: 0312311370 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Parchment of Leaves (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by SILAS HOUSE ISBN: 0345464974 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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