Reviews

Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley by Ann Pancake

borderhopper's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The stories are hard to follow. It's like characters are telling a story to one another, not to the reader. The place and time contexts are vague, as are references to the characters. There's also a lot of local vocabulary used.

dominic_piacentini's review against another edition

3.0

Some of the novellas and short stories are as impressive (made more impressive by their brevity) as Pancake’s novel Strange as This Weather Has Been, with In Such Light, Dogsong, Rockhounds, Sugars Up, and Me and My Dad Listen to Bob Marley being the standouts.

jojo_swaggins's review against another edition

3.0

This books was.. dissatisfying..

It was not poorly written, don’t get me wrong. It was finely crafted and beautiful that way.

You know how many stories finish with the character at a crossroads and can either change their life or hang out on their mediocre path? This is one of those, except.. they don’t change their life.. they don’t make it better.. you get the feeling they are going to continue down this path of self destruction they’re currently on..

It’s just dissatisfying.

chidseyca's review against another edition

4.0

The writing was incredible and I easily could have given this book a 5, but I didn't love all of the stories although they were written extremely well. Definitely interested in reading her other books.

galsgotmoxie's review

3.0

This collection of West Virginia-set stories opens hot with the novella "In Such Light," but is ultimately quite uneven. The good stories are quite good, with "Mouseskull," "Arsonists" and the titular "Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley" the standouts in my opinion. The rest of the collection -- mostly the shorter stories -- gets too bogged down in creative writing course Appalachian patois and a few odd pacing and character decisions, so much so that the architecture of the stories becomes a distraction from the story itself. The stronger pieces largely make up for those missteps, however, making for a satisfying read.