That Night by Alice McDermott Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of That Night
Book Review: Too sketchy
Summary: 2 Stars
I was eager to read the book after watching the film on BBC2 (England). I expected the novel to be more descriptive, imaginative and more three dimensional than the film but found it to be quite sketchy and without fluidity. It jumped from past to present and from scene to scene quite disjointedly and I found it difficult to continue reading for I felt like I'd read the same paragraph over and over. As a result of this the only characters which seemed to convey themselves as three dimensional were that of Rick and Sheryls'. There didn't seem to be any revelation at the end of the story, I guess with having knowledge of that era that it would be quite obvious in the way things ended, with broken teenage love and little thought for the result of that. Quite disappointing overall, though worth watching the film.Book Review: Wonderful!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my all time favorites. I first read it when I was barely out of my teens and identified with Sheryl, the teenager who becomes pregnant and is sent away to live with relatives. Now, as a suburban mother, I identify with the mothers whose lives- dashed hopes and dreams - and those of their husbands and children are so vividly described in McDermott's uncanny way of creating a visual and lyrical snapshot of suburban life in the sixties.Alice McDermott really gets it right. Early love and the inevitable loss of it colors the way we think for the rest of our lives. The memories this novel brings back to me are so strong that this is one of the few books I re-read every few months.
Book Review: haunting, elegaic
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, this is a quite wonderful book that traces and retraces the events of one night in a suburban community. Small in scale, the book imbues the setting and characters with poetry, heroism, grace and tragedy. No detail is too minor; the creak of a jacket, the shape of a bruise, the way Sheryl's front teeth overlap "like dealt cards." On this night when a lost boy and a grieving girl are elevated to mythic proportions by her absence and his assault on her home, the fathers become giants and the mothers form a Greek chorus of wailing commentary. It's an accomplishment to transform the mundane into the passionate, and McDermott has accomplished it, here.Book Review: nothing extraordinary
Summary: 1 Stars
i had to read this book in school. it's horrible. it's annoying. There is no point to the story. It isn't even fun to read. I would keep reading, expecting something great to happen, but nothing ever happened. i skimmed the last 25 pages--it was that boring. there are quite a few typos in it as well. everything about it is pure cliche. the first few pages are good, then it stops. it's like, mcdermott had imagination when she began writing it, then she went braindead. i would not recommend it to anyone.