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book_concierge's review against another edition
3.0
The Shaws may live in the present day, but they are all stuck in the past. They are active "re-enacters" of the Civil War ... but more importantly they are all "enacting" their every day lives.
wrentheblurry's review against another edition
4.0
First off, I put this on my military-war-terrorism shelf only because the narrator's sister and father are heavily into Civil War re-enactments. That said, Jane Hamilton is incredibly talented at characterization. I am convinced she could portray the point of view of a couch and I would come to bond with the furniture and understand why it sometimes doesn't want people to sit on it. Here, she has poured her skill into the voice of a teenage boy.
The boy, Henry, reads his mother's email, and discovers she is having an affair. Then he cannot stop from reading the emails, though he doesn't discuss it with her. Hamilton takes us on a deep journey (though it doesn't last that long in days) into Henry's feelings and thought processes as he tries to deal with the information he's discovered.
I wouldn't normally care to read about people who re-enact war battles, or pianists and other musicians that fell in love, Hamilton's impressive writing style won me over, and quickly.
Well done, with a satisfying ending.
The boy, Henry, reads his mother's email, and discovers she is having an affair. Then he cannot stop from reading the emails, though he doesn't discuss it with her. Hamilton takes us on a deep journey (though it doesn't last that long in days) into Henry's feelings and thought processes as he tries to deal with the information he's discovered.
I wouldn't normally care to read about people who re-enact war battles, or pianists and other musicians that fell in love, Hamilton's impressive writing style won me over, and quickly.
Well done, with a satisfying ending.
meghan111's review against another edition
2.0
A teenage boy named Henry reads his mom's email and finds out she's having an affair, then creepily keeps secretly reading her email for months and months, printing out messages as an archive, and just generally creeping it up and obsessing about how her affair relates to him. His mom at one point goes to a tarot reader and emails a friend about how the reader told her that Henry and she were married in a past life, and now they're mother and son. Henry reads that email, of course, and thinks disturbing thoughts about his mom's affair. He refers to her variously as Beth, Liza, and Mrs. Shaw in his narration. Nothing really happens - Henry, the teenage boy, living in an upscale Chicago neighborhood, is described as smart and amiable, someone who does what's expected of him. His younger sister is the only character with any life: a butch girl obsessed with Civil War reenactments. This brings me to the heart of my irritation, which is that the mom is completely upset throughout the whole novel because her daughter wants to be a boy in Civil War reenactments. She is described as profoundly torn up inside that her daughter is not interested in feminine things or in wearing dresses, but the mom is such a poorly drawn character that it doesn't make sense that she would be upset, and then there's a climactic incident that ends with the daughter giving up on her obsession with the Civil War.
Horribly self-important and serious-minded, too literary, the description of a boy poisoning himself slowly by being unable to stop invading his mother's privacy doesn't ever come to life on the page - he's kind of a cipher who doesn't suffer consequences, and his mom is much the same.
Horribly self-important and serious-minded, too literary, the description of a boy poisoning himself slowly by being unable to stop invading his mother's privacy doesn't ever come to life on the page - he's kind of a cipher who doesn't suffer consequences, and his mom is much the same.
emilyisreading2024's review against another edition
3.0
Disobedience is about a high school aged boy who discovers his mother's affair while reading her email. As other reviewers have pointed out, there are some good lines in this book, but overall the story is slow and it's not all that believable. Unlike most of the reviewers here, I didn't really like the younger sister who was obsessed with the Civil War.
novelesque_life's review against another edition
1.0
1 STAR
"A wayward wife, an oedipally obsessed e-mail snoop, a pint-sized Civil War re-enactor (oops, make that living historian) and a cheerfully oblivious cuckold comprise the Shaws of Chicago, the decidedly quirky characters of Jane Hamilton's fourth novel, Disobedience. An unlikely family to fall prey to the vagaries of modern life, the Shaws are consumed with clog dancing, early music and the War Between the States. They do possess a computer, however, and when 17-year-old Henry stumbles into his mother's e-mail account and epistolary evidence of her affair with a Ukrainian violinist, he becomes consumed with this glimpse into her life as a woman, not simply a mother.
To picture my mother a lover, I had at first to break her in my mind's eye, hold her over my knee, like a stick, bust her in two. When that was done, when I had changed her like that, I could see her in a different way. I could put her through the motions like a jointed puppet, all dancy in the limbs, loose, nothing to hold her up but me.
While his mother (whom he refers to variously as Mrs Shaw, Beth or by her e-mail sobriquet, Liza38), dallies with her pen pal, whom she calls "the companion of my body, the guest of my heart", Henry experiences his own sexual awakening, his 13-year-old sister, Elvira, retreats into gender-bending historical fantasy, and their father remains determinedly absorbed in pedagogical responsibilities.Ironically (and not completely convincingly) narrated by an adult Henry, Disobedience has a rollicking tone somewhat at odds with the sombre prospects that loom for this family. A very worldly teenager in some ways, despite the hippie wholesomeness of his family, Henry tells his tale in abundant, almost flowery prose, imagining his mother's private life with elegiac fervour." (From Amazon)
I was bored to tears with this one.
"A wayward wife, an oedipally obsessed e-mail snoop, a pint-sized Civil War re-enactor (oops, make that living historian) and a cheerfully oblivious cuckold comprise the Shaws of Chicago, the decidedly quirky characters of Jane Hamilton's fourth novel, Disobedience. An unlikely family to fall prey to the vagaries of modern life, the Shaws are consumed with clog dancing, early music and the War Between the States. They do possess a computer, however, and when 17-year-old Henry stumbles into his mother's e-mail account and epistolary evidence of her affair with a Ukrainian violinist, he becomes consumed with this glimpse into her life as a woman, not simply a mother.
To picture my mother a lover, I had at first to break her in my mind's eye, hold her over my knee, like a stick, bust her in two. When that was done, when I had changed her like that, I could see her in a different way. I could put her through the motions like a jointed puppet, all dancy in the limbs, loose, nothing to hold her up but me.
While his mother (whom he refers to variously as Mrs Shaw, Beth or by her e-mail sobriquet, Liza38), dallies with her pen pal, whom she calls "the companion of my body, the guest of my heart", Henry experiences his own sexual awakening, his 13-year-old sister, Elvira, retreats into gender-bending historical fantasy, and their father remains determinedly absorbed in pedagogical responsibilities.Ironically (and not completely convincingly) narrated by an adult Henry, Disobedience has a rollicking tone somewhat at odds with the sombre prospects that loom for this family. A very worldly teenager in some ways, despite the hippie wholesomeness of his family, Henry tells his tale in abundant, almost flowery prose, imagining his mother's private life with elegiac fervour." (From Amazon)
I was bored to tears with this one.
caedycon's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
A Map of the World was one of my few 5-star reads from 2021. Sadly, this book just did not hit me the same. Jane Hamilton's writing is still beautiful, but this book was a bit of a struggle to get through. I didn't connect very deeply with the characters, especially not Henry. I think it's kind of hard to get into a book when the main character isn't particularly appealing. I guess it was more a book about his mother, told through his eyes, than it was about him, and I did find her to be an interesting person. I liked the ending and what it says about marriage and compromise. Overall - lovely prose, but I won't be returning to this book or really recommending it.
booksaremysuperpower's review against another edition
3.0
A heartbreaking, and at times hysterical, read. I've read of Jane Hamilton books, and this felt like a departure from her heavy Wisconsin stories. Daughter Elvira is obsessed with Civil War reenactments... on this fact alone, I think you should go out and read the book. I think she is one of the best created characters ever, and I wish there was a whole novel devoted to her.
kfreedman's review against another edition
4.0
Good character development in this book. Narrator is mostly a teenage boy, description of his family dynamics, relationship with his sister and parents and so on. More complex and empathic than I had expected. Really good!