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Lynn Coady

Teoksen The Antagonist tekijä

13+ teosta 829 jäsentä 32 arvostelua 1 Favorited

Tietoja tekijästä

Lynn Coady was born in Cape Breton. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. She has edited an anthology of new writing from Canada's east coast called 'Victory Meat,' and a novel called 'Mean Boy' has been sold to näytä lisää Doubleday Canada. She writes for newspapers and magazines from time to time as well. Her title, Strange Heaven has won the Dartmouth Book Award in 1999, the Atlantic Bookseller's Choice Award in 1999, the Air Canada/Canadian Author's Association Award for Most Promising Writer Under Thirty in 1998, and was shortlisted for the Governer-General's Award for Fiction in 1998. Her title, Play the Monster Blind, won the Canadian Author's Association's Jubilee Award for a short fiction collection in 2001, was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 2000, was shortlisted again for the CNIB Award, and The Writer's Trust Award in 2001. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän

Includes the name: Lynn Coady

Image credit: photo: Christy Ann Conlin

Tekijän teokset

The Antagonist (2013) 213 kappaletta
Hellgoing: Stories (2013) 133 kappaletta
Strange Heaven (1998) 115 kappaletta
Saints of Big Harbour (2002) 102 kappaletta
Mean Boy (2006) 91 kappaletta
Watching You Without Me (2020) 63 kappaletta
Play the Monster Blind (2000) 62 kappaletta
The Three Marys (2014) 3 kappaletta

Associated Works

McSweeney's Issue 47 (2014) — Avustaja — 53 kappaletta
Sex and Death: Stories (2016) — Avustaja — 43 kappaletta
The Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women in English (1999) — Tekijä, eräät painokset29 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Actual Rating: 3.5

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this was a hard one to rate. It wasn’t a bad read and I actually was quite invested in the outcome, but it was not necessarily a captivating book.

This book follows Karen. When her mother suddenly dies, she’s forced to move back home to Nova Scotia and take care of her disabled sister Kelli. Even though she’s new to everything, at least Trevor, a hired caregiver — and close friend of her mother — is always there to help. Karen grows to depend more and more on him, while at the same time feeling uneasy with his presence; he’s pushy and bossy and seems to make himself a tad bit too comfortable in their home. But what right does she have to say anything when she was the absentee daughter who left to live her own life, the one who only called home once-a-month because it was what was expected?

The plot for this book definitely started out a little too slow for my liking, and it also wasn’t the type of story I was expecting. From the original blurb I thought it would be more thriller/mystery and to be honest I think it does the book a disservice to market it that way — it’s a lot more contemporary/family. I didn’t really get into it until about 40% in. After that, even though I was more invested in the developments between Trevor and Karen, it still very slow, as if we were trudging towards an end result that I already saw coming. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the realistic and subtle way in which emotionally and mentally abusive relationships and questionable power dynamics were portrayed.

At its core, Watching You Without Me was not very character-driven, and Karen was not very likeable because it felt like she kept making bad decisions. HOWEVER. And this is a huge however: I get it. I completely understand the difficulty of recognizing toxicity and bullying when it’s happening to you, and the difficulty in taking any action at all. It feels like Karen does well not as an individual, but in representing a concept, and I’m okay with that.

The writing style was overall pretty good. There were no lines that jumped out at me for their eloquence and it took me a while to get invested, but as a whole I felt like the book wrote a good story and made its reader think.

Overall, I think this would be good for a reader of contemporary fiction, especially one who reads about navigating dysfunctional family dynamics or taking care of a family member with disabilities.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
CatherineHsu | 5 muuta kirja-arvostelua | May 27, 2021 |
I enjoyed this story about Karen, who has returned home after 20 years to deal with the death of her mother, and the long-term care of her developmentally delayed older sister. She comes to rely on Trevor, one of her sister's support workers. This novel builds tension slowly. Told from Karen's perspective, we can see her coming to terms with her relationship with her mother, her past choices and her next steps. Very well written, with complex characters that I really wanted to find out how they ended up.… (lisätietoja)
½
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
LynnB | 5 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Sep 19, 2020 |
Wonderful,very funny and insightful. Couldn’t put it down,great writing. Just a massive treat.
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
alans | 5 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jul 23, 2020 |
I haven’t read a book set in Nova Scotia before, so I was really looking forward to this book. Karen has returned for the first time in ten years. She’s been dealing with the guilt over the death of her mother from cancer
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
brangwinn | 5 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jul 19, 2020 |

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Teokset
13
Also by
3
Jäseniä
829
Suosituimmuussija
#30,792
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.7
Kirja-arvosteluja
32
ISBN:t
50
Kielet
1
Kuinka monen suosikki
1

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