Run | 
| Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy Used: $11.55
You Save: $14.40 (55%)
New (10) Used (13) from $11.55
Avg. Customer Rating:  182 reviews
Sales Rank: 175992
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B00150II3U
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Very good condition, clean and tight, with subtle shelf and edge wear, multiple copies, may be an ex library copy, we will send the best available, prompt shipping, excellent service.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 177 more reviews...
 Super July 25, 2008
I was immediately pulled in from the moment I started reading this book. This is a story concisely written. It moves dynamically forward, constantly, never letting up, always bringing in some new element of surprise.
What struck me most about this book was that, despite the conciseness of Patchett's style, the characterisations are very strong, vivid, and lifelike. No-one is quite what or who he thinks he is in the end, and a lot of development takes place with each character. The storyline is believable despite the strangeness of the scenario - things like this could happen, and could happen to anyone.
I think the downside of my experience reading this book was the last chapter. I see the necessity of the information in it, but it's like a free-fall onto the pavement after having been flying high for so long.
It is true that she touches on many, many things that are Major Issues - race and so forth. Yet somehow the fact that she does NOT dwell on these issues is very refreshing. You can pick up Time or Newsweek to read about issues, if that's what you're wanting. I enjoy a break from that.
Good read. I recommend.
 Weird and what WAS the point? July 24, 2008
The characters in this novel were flat and one dimensional if not completely stereotypical. I found the writing very loose and exceedingly boring. It seemed like a good outline for a story but was lacking in character development, tension, realism and emotion, in other words it was missing everything that makes a good story.
This is the story of a father and his two adopted sons, they are black, he is white. Their adoptive mother, Bernadette, died when they were little. On a cold and snowy night their father takes them to hear Jesse Jackson speak. Afterward there is a car accident. Tip, the elder of the two sons, is injured but it could have been much worse if it weren't for the quick thinking and heroic actions of a complete stranger. The woman who pushed Tip out of the way was seriously injured. Now this woman and her daughter are connected to them.
I guess I expected the book to explore racism, or racial inequities or what it's like to have a racially mixed family. But Ann Patchette doesn't deal with the issue of racism in this book she merely refers to characters including the color of their skin.
Are the white police officers and EMTs racist because they assume the black people at the scene of the car accident are related to each other? Maybe, possibly, but not necessarily.
I thought that this book started out with a good anecdotal story about Bernadette's grandfather and how he came to possess a much adored statue of the Virgin Mary. I expected that story to be foreshadowing about family dysfunction, errors in judgment, love, faith and forgiveness. But the story about Bernadette's grandfather seemed to be where the story-telling left off.
This is the first of Ann Patchett's novels I have read and I thought it was weak in every aspect. I didn't care for the story, the telling of it or the characters. There wasn't any real examination of the relationships or any real insight to character's feelings, the characters themselves were not at all developed.
I had more questions than answers at the end of this book and it was all tied up a little too symmetrically at the end, I didn't find it believable.
* *SPOILERS*AHEAD!* *
I have questions like...
Did the aunts agree with Doyle's decision about who got the statue?
If not then we can talk about racism, otherwise they were just being very literal old bats at the beginning of the book.
How on earth could Beverly stalk someone for twenty years and not be seen by the family or just completely exhausted or an in-patient at a mental hospital?
How did Beverly assume the identity she did? How did that work, I wanted the details...
How did Doyle adopt his daughter? Again Some details would have been nice. And any details about the characters feelings would have been nice as well.
Over all I thought this book fell completely flat.
Good Read, Intriguing Characters June 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
RUN is a good book -- interesting, memorable characters, well paced. It was not a favorite though, and I am not sure that it is a book that I would read again, or that I could relate to, but I was very interested in what the outcome would be, in what would happen to the characters. I am endlessly intrigued by the way that Patchett's characters have such compelling, defining obessions. The obsessions with politics, speeches, fish, running, and (lost) children were all very strong in this book, and that reminded me of BEL CANTO, where the obsession with music and opera was so palpable that it inspired me to try to listen to opera again (she wrote so beautifully of it that I thought it just MUST be beautiful, but, alas, I still don't care at all for opera.) In this book, I had to admire these obsessions with politics and speeches and fish and running, though I am well aware that I am not going to be able to share in any of these obsessions. But Patchett's achievement is in making them all sound interesting. I was prepared for Patchett's pace after reading BEL CANTO, so I did not find this book slow at all. I also strongly disagree that this book is in any way any more unbelievable or impropable than BEL CANTO. The plots in both novel are similarly improbable in my view. I understand why she didn't, or couldn't, go further in exploring the characters, given the limited time span of the events in the novel. But I remain curious, and slightly suspicious of her treatment of race in the novel. She certainly did not ignore the issue -- I suppose she couldn't, wouldn't dare -- but what she did cover barely scratched the surface. I suppose I am not surprised, but I am a little disappointed.
 Run June 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'd like to begin this review by stating that I never divulge the plot in my reviews (that would be a "book report" - instead I'll tell you what I thought of the book overall and how it made me feel. "Run" was my first experience with Ann Patchett's work, and I can't say that I eager to go back for more. It is a thickly layered story of improbable events and contrived emotion. I felt as if Patchett was constantly trying to provoke a reaction by bombarding the reader with a seemingly never-ending series of shmaltzy plot turns. As an adoptive parent I thought I would connect with this book on some level, but there just wasn't any part of it that I could believe in. It was simultaneously too in-depth and too shallow (if that is possible), resulting in a boring read that caused me to roll my eyes more than once as the plot slowly unraveled. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, and the emotions the characters express are not entirely believable. In all, Run is a slow read with a tiresome plot and unrealistic characters.
A stroll through stereotypes. June 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Unlike some reviewers, I believe this novel had potential. Family themes are some of my favorites in literature. Unfortunately, this book is jammed with so many Big Theme Messages that the characters come across as mouthpieces for the writer rather than real people, and the plot turns out to be a mere megaphone for said mouthpieces. We leave this book less with a lingering presence of the people Ms. Patchett has created, and more with the knowledge that Ms. Patchett has Something To Say about race, religion, politics, class.
Most of this Something is steeped in political correctness, to the point that she utilizes the very stereotypes that she seems to find offensive. On top of this, one-scene characters in this novel have no personality, but their race is always noted. Is this Ms. Patchett's idea of taking on racism--paying obsessive attention to race?
Ms. Patchett's writing style is mostly pleasing. I found her construction of sentences easy to enjoy. In fact, after reading some of these reviews, I would consider reading _Bel Canto_. I would hope, however, that her other works include tighter scenes than are provided here. Interior monologue tends to mire this book's pace until the title becomes ironic.
In addition to the neverending Deep Thoughts of the characters, there were times I wanted to muzzle the narrator. For example, on p. 93,94:
"'Awake?' Teddy said. They had been saying it to each other all their lives, sleeping in their opposite beds or, in this case, opposite couches. It meant, Are you there, are you listening to me, will you talk to me now?"
Yes, asking if one is awake implies that one wants to talk. What reader needs to be told this? But in this book, the spelling out of subtext is worse than irritating or insulting. Something about it tries to be wise, as if everything these characters say must somehow further what the writer has to say. Sadly, this straining for profundity only marginalizes the characters, a fatal flaw for a character novel.
At the end of this book, I felt as though Ms. Patchett did not start her work with Doyle, Tip, Teddy, Sullivan, or Kenya. I felt she started with a formula: "Rich white father, white, wayward son and black, less wayward sons meet poor black mother and poor-but-amazingly-gifted black daughter."
As F. Scott Fitzgerald said so perfectly: "Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created--nothing."
|
|
|
