Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant

This book by Michel Tremblay was my 12th read for the Challenge and my fourth read of this year's selections for Canada Reads. So far, this was the most disappointing book to date. As I mentioned previously, it could be related to the fact that there was something lost in the translation from French to English. Perhaps also it was too personal to the author such that some detail was not included that would help the reader along. It did improve about half-way through the book, however I cannot say that I really enjoyed it - with some exceptions. There were so many characters that I found following the book a bit confusing. Each section flipped from one family to another and sometimes I was about a paragraph in before I realized who he was talking about. I had particular difficulty keeping Victoire's family straight as there were so many living in the one household - mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses, children. This book just did not hold my attention and I was almost glad to be finished with it - sorry!

2 comments:

  1. It was up for the French version of Canada reads a few years ago, and didn't win then either.

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  2. Great and honest review! It seems that many people held the same sentiments with regard to there being far too many characters, making it a confusing read. My review can be found here if you're interested.

    Happy Reading!

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