Review by Beeda
Apr 21 3 Stars for Patrick Taylor
5 Stars for John Keating's Narration
Overall I found the book entertaining, though a little problematic. I really enjoyed the narration by John Keating.
I found some of Patrick Taylors descriptions of larger people to be unnecessarily demeaning, especially when it came to describing larger women. We know people come in all shapes and sizes, and the disdain that I felt come off the page for larger people was a bit much.
There were also some descriptions of people based on racist stereotypes and a scene where Barry's friend disguises himself as a person from Mumbai that I'm pretty sure was not politically ok. If the book had really been written in the 1960's which is the time frame for the novel, then I might have thought, ok, this is still wrong but I get it, that was what was done at the time, but this was written in 2004, so yeah, not ok.
I wasn't a fan of Dr. Barry Laverty either. I found him to be chauvinistic and also very quick to make assumptions and judgements. Bit of a know it all too. The way he treated Patricia after she told him she didn't want to have sex with him so soon into the relationship because she needed to concentrate on her studies was unforgivable. He just cuts her off, and then acts like a baby rather than try to understand where she was coming from. She even spelled it out for him including what she had to lose from getting distacted by falling in love too soon and he still acted like an ass towards her. I hope as the series progresses that mellows out as he grows into himself because I find him a tad annoying.
3 Stars for Patrick Taylor
5 Stars for John Keating's Narration
Overall I found the book entertaining, though a little problematic. I really enjoyed the narration by John Keating.
I found some of Patrick Taylors descriptions of larger people to be unnecessarily demeaning, especially when it came to describing larger women. We know people come in all shapes and sizes, and the disdain that I felt come off the page for larger people was a bit much.
There were also some descriptions of people based on racist stereotypes and a scene where Barry's friend disguises himself as a person from Mumbai that I'm pretty sure was not politically ok. If the book had really been written in the 1960's which is the time frame for the novel, then I might have thought, ok, this is still wrong but I get it, that was what was done at the time, but this was written in 2004, so yeah, not ok.
I wasn't a fan of Dr. Barry Laverty either. I found him to be chauvinistic and also very quick to make assumptions and judgements. Bit of a know it all too. The way he treated Patricia after she told him she didn't want to have sex with him so soon into the relationship because she needed to concentrate on her studies was unforgivable. He just cuts her off, and then acts like a baby rather than try to understand where she was coming from. She even spelled it out for him including what she had to lose from getting distacted by falling in love too soon and he still acted like an ass towards her. I hope as the series progresses that mellows out as he grows into himself because I find him a tad annoying.
