..then they grow on you. I want a book that grabs me from the beginning...as i have a very short attn span.

and then I cut my losses. I gave this a bit more since everyone loved it. Should have stopped sooner.

I didn't make it to page 50.

I forced myself to read in its entirety Confederacy of Dunces. I didn't like it all.

Slow, dull, gray.

I'll usually try 100 pages, and I'll usually try twice. Nah.

entirely empathetic and believable. Great humor along with the moving developments. I believe you are missing a great deal if you put a novel like this in the category of a Lake Woebegone radio play.

I recently finished my second reading of it. I admit that I was more smitten, especially with the writing, the first time. But this time, I got more of the characterization and themes. I also understand why some wouldn't like it. The style is quirky. The characters are losers, or at least misfits--people who, for the most part have never found a place to belong. And here they've washed up in this wilderness of ice, a setting that reflects their isolation and helps explain their peculiarities.

and the truth embedded in it, of a writer like Proulx. I enjoyed every line in this novel, and it resonated with me like temple bell.

There's so much to savor. Quoyle's anguish; Bunny's anger. Agnis' pain; Wavey's blossoming. The symbolism of the house at Quoyle's Point. I admire Quoyle's doggedness. After enduring so much, he won't quit; instead, he prospers. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances....

I was transported by the beauty of it. The film simply could not have captured the complex elegance.

I tried it, too, since it was supposed to be so great. Didn't work for me.