Welcome to another installment of the United States of Books!
See full details here. Today we will visit California with Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion. Entertainment Weekly say’s "Didion's 1970 classic,
about a woman and a marriage breaking down, is both an ode to the freedom of
the freeways and a eulogy for dreams shriveled by the sun."
SYNOPSIS
(From Goodreads.com)
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It
as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary
society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a
place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren
wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul
- it remains more than three decades after its original publication a
profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a
society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.
REVIEW
By Elisha - Rainy Day Reviews
I don’t think this book is your typical read, like a James
Patterson or Jodi Picoult…not saying they are typical because they are amazing
and talented authors. But Joan Didion is not a Jodi Picoult type author. Joan
grabs you with this story from the very beginning, waiting for the other shoe
to drop. With school, my child, and life in general, it took me a couple weeks
to read this “can’t put this book down” book because I wanted to see if this
‘sad female with nothing but time and money’ would do something with herself
and stop feeling sorry for herself. I did have empathy for her as the
story continued because as the reader can tell she is truly sad and can’t pull
herself out of it. You want to go into the book and shake her but hug her at
the same time. There was twists and turns in this story I was not expecting but
was pleasantly surprised by. I tend to be a cynical person (in the Miranda from Sex
in the City kind of
way) so when I started reading Maria’s character, I thought oh good Lord…but
then, something happens (no spoilers!) This was a memorable read, for sure. It
is also one that I would recommend to others.
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