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smcone's review
2.0
Awesome idea, not such great follow-through. Often too more detail than necessary to create the scenes.
kaylielongley's review
4.0
This darkly funny book made for light reading. After experiencing heart-wrenching tales from author Hamilton in the past, I did not know what to expect. This Wisconsin author has instead crafted a pseudo romance. It's almost a satire where a wife has engineered a romance between her husband and her role model, in the hope of collecting data for a book she's writing. The book is unafraid to be odd, with glimpses of aliens, a farm backdrop, and unashamed characters who don't quite know they're feminists and rebels yet live their lives, ignorant to the rest. Most of all, I liked Hamilton's observations of making idols out of people: both the husband and wife fall for the same person, one for her brain and the other for a presumed chemistry. Yet by turning a person into an idea, lust triumphs over love.
littlemascara's review
1.0
This book contains the worst description of a penis that I have ever read.
adamrbrooks's review
3.0
Lori thought this was a great story. I thought it was meh. Writing is good and characters are pretty interesting. But the action happens, then it stops, and one character seems happy about it. But she didn't seem to REALLY get what she wanted or NOT get what she wanted. It's just there.
anarag's review
4.0
This book is quite a departure from Jane Hamilton's other novels, which are harrowing and strike to the heart. (I love them but I can only read one about every five years as they haunt me thereafter. Thankfully, she is not prolific in her output.) Here, she allows her detailed observations of human frailties, foibles, ego and love to emerge in humorous, satirical ways.
lbb00ks's review
Not sure I bought in to the premise of this one, and could not get a certain radio show host out of my consciousness while I read along.
booksaremysuperpower's review against another edition
Bienvenue and Wilkomen to my "Someday I will finish..." shelf!
This book stares at me with guilt-ridden eyes from my bookshelf. See my other entry on Jane Hamilton for more details, but I feel like I belong in reading shame jail for not even getting a quarter of the way into this one.
Reasons being:
A. Based on my other experience with "A Map of the World", I should have known better.
B. I bought the book when I didn't really have the money to do so, so yeah, I should have know better too.
C. Maybe I don't really like Jane Hamilton as much as I thought?
I'm determined to finish "Laura Rider's Masterpiece" if only to stop it from judging me. Or at the very least, I'll move it to the back of my shelf.
This book stares at me with guilt-ridden eyes from my bookshelf. See my other entry on Jane Hamilton for more details, but I feel like I belong in reading shame jail for not even getting a quarter of the way into this one.
Reasons being:
A. Based on my other experience with "A Map of the World", I should have known better.
B. I bought the book when I didn't really have the money to do so, so yeah, I should have know better too.
C. Maybe I don't really like Jane Hamilton as much as I thought?
I'm determined to finish "Laura Rider's Masterpiece" if only to stop it from judging me. Or at the very least, I'll move it to the back of my shelf.
lisa_mc's review against another edition
4.0
The first few pages of Jane Hamilton’s new novel elicit chuckles, snorts and a couple of laughs loud enough to require explanation to others in the vicinity.
Yes, it’s a sex comedy from the same Jane Hamilton known for her weighty, complex stories of families and relationships, such as “The Book of Ruth,” “A Map of the World” and “When Madeline Was Young.”
But while “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” is a departure in terms of tone — quick, breezy, funny — from Hamilton’s previous work, it touches on the same themes of relationships and personal identity. It also has the same smart writing and pitch-perfect characterization as Hamilton’s other novels.
The story centers on Laura Rider and her husband, happy-go-lucky Charlie, who own a nursery in rural Wisconsin. They’re close friends and good partners, but — by Laura’s unilateral decision — they’ve ceased and desisted their conjugal relations.
One day Charlie meets, by chance, radio personality Jenna Faroli, who hosts a talk show on NPR that Laura faithfully listens to. Both are a little star-struck when she sends him a brief e-mail afterward, and together they compose a reply, and then another, and soon they’re each writing long, thoughtful messages to Jenna under Charlie’s name.
The correspondence continues electronically for a while, until Charlie, with Laura’s not-so-tacit encouragement, seeks a closer relationship with Jenna, whose judge husband has engrossed himself in the writing of a book on law.
Laura, who is not much of a reader but has decided to write a romance novel, sees the whole affair as an experiment, a way to examine characters and figure out what kind of hero and heroine she would write about, what they would want from each other, what their conflict would be — because every romance novel has to have a conflict — and how it could get resolved.
As one can imagine, misunderstandings and mayhem ensue, but what specifically happens is not at all predictable, which adds to the sense of fun.
However, a darker undercurrent flows through “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” as well. While Jenna presents a calm, erudite persona on the air, in reality she’s impatient, bored, snarky and idling in a not particularly exciting marriage.
“What had Jenna said to Suzie? Try to find the thrill in sound judgment. What fly-by-night Girl Scout leader had had that come from?”
The need for a thrill makes Jenna toss out her own sound judgment and connect with a person like Charlie; it also makes her vulnerable to Laura’s machinations.
For Laura, writing is quite a selfish pursuit; it’s all about her. So it’s unsurprising that the insights she comes away with fit her own point of view: “Maybe the whole point of love was to break each other so that from those shattered selves you could build a better, a sturdier self, so that you could go forward — not hand in hand but a comfortable arm’s length apart.”
Laura blithely carries on, unaware, or unconcerned, that the players in her experiment have feelings that messily spill outside any predetermined plot formula. Charlie is “constitutionally incapable of being unhappy for too long,” though Jenna’s hurt may stick around a little longer.
But the hurts in “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” are mainly to pride. No lives are destroyed, no families torn asunder. And there are plenty of funny lines, droll observations and humorous situations along the way.
Readers will quickly devour this light novel, but discover that it’s more filling and satisfying than it appears.
Yes, it’s a sex comedy from the same Jane Hamilton known for her weighty, complex stories of families and relationships, such as “The Book of Ruth,” “A Map of the World” and “When Madeline Was Young.”
But while “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” is a departure in terms of tone — quick, breezy, funny — from Hamilton’s previous work, it touches on the same themes of relationships and personal identity. It also has the same smart writing and pitch-perfect characterization as Hamilton’s other novels.
The story centers on Laura Rider and her husband, happy-go-lucky Charlie, who own a nursery in rural Wisconsin. They’re close friends and good partners, but — by Laura’s unilateral decision — they’ve ceased and desisted their conjugal relations.
One day Charlie meets, by chance, radio personality Jenna Faroli, who hosts a talk show on NPR that Laura faithfully listens to. Both are a little star-struck when she sends him a brief e-mail afterward, and together they compose a reply, and then another, and soon they’re each writing long, thoughtful messages to Jenna under Charlie’s name.
The correspondence continues electronically for a while, until Charlie, with Laura’s not-so-tacit encouragement, seeks a closer relationship with Jenna, whose judge husband has engrossed himself in the writing of a book on law.
Laura, who is not much of a reader but has decided to write a romance novel, sees the whole affair as an experiment, a way to examine characters and figure out what kind of hero and heroine she would write about, what they would want from each other, what their conflict would be — because every romance novel has to have a conflict — and how it could get resolved.
As one can imagine, misunderstandings and mayhem ensue, but what specifically happens is not at all predictable, which adds to the sense of fun.
However, a darker undercurrent flows through “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” as well. While Jenna presents a calm, erudite persona on the air, in reality she’s impatient, bored, snarky and idling in a not particularly exciting marriage.
“What had Jenna said to Suzie? Try to find the thrill in sound judgment. What fly-by-night Girl Scout leader had had that come from?”
The need for a thrill makes Jenna toss out her own sound judgment and connect with a person like Charlie; it also makes her vulnerable to Laura’s machinations.
For Laura, writing is quite a selfish pursuit; it’s all about her. So it’s unsurprising that the insights she comes away with fit her own point of view: “Maybe the whole point of love was to break each other so that from those shattered selves you could build a better, a sturdier self, so that you could go forward — not hand in hand but a comfortable arm’s length apart.”
Laura blithely carries on, unaware, or unconcerned, that the players in her experiment have feelings that messily spill outside any predetermined plot formula. Charlie is “constitutionally incapable of being unhappy for too long,” though Jenna’s hurt may stick around a little longer.
But the hurts in “Laura Rider’s Masterpiece” are mainly to pride. No lives are destroyed, no families torn asunder. And there are plenty of funny lines, droll observations and humorous situations along the way.
Readers will quickly devour this light novel, but discover that it’s more filling and satisfying than it appears.