Spooner

So many other readers gave "Spooner" harsh reviews, but I thoroughly enjoyed Pete Dexter's storytelling. Don't get me wrong, as a writer this man can definitely create a compelling sentence, but he is a bona fide storyteller -- and there is a difference. True, nothing really "happens" in this novel.......more

3 stars... ...but it could've should've been so much better. In the Acknowledgments at the end of Spooner (the strangest acknowledgments I've ever encountered, by the way, from someone who'd eschewed them in his six books prior) Dexter mentioned that this was an 800-page behemoth manuscript, pared d......more

Making room on my Shelf of Honor for this one! Some favorite lines: 'He [Arlo] never asked what had happened, just let Calmer tell him about it in his own time, his own way. Arlo was everyone's favorite, and there were reasons for that.' (41) "And Spooner knew that something terrible had happened, or n......more

I felt super-fortunate when I found the ARC to this title at a consignment shop, only weeks after the hardcover was released. This book was getting a lot of media hype, and Dexter was 3 years overdue on his contract in getting this one out, so I was really looking forward to it. In the ARC he includ......more