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| Author: Brunonia Barry
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $16.47
You Save: $8.48 (34%)
Rating:  157 reviews
Sales Rank: 3193
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061624764
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061624766
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Everything falls apart! August 4, 2008
19 out of 30 found this review helpful
Am I the only one who thought this book totally falls apart by the last third of the novel? Off to a good start, and then it all dissolves into a grey-area which takes suspending disbelief to a whole new level. One of the worst, least satisfying endings to a novel I've read in a very long time.
 Doesn't Live up to the Hype August 15, 2008
18 out of 23 found this review helpful
THE LACE READER is one of the most heavily hyped books of the year, with HarperCollins paying Brunonia Barry a whopping $2.4 million for the rights to this novel and an untitled follow up. I wish I could say this debut lives up to the hype, but it really doesn't.
This novel isn't exactly bad, but it's structured in an awkward manner that makes it difficult to get into. Most notably, very little happens during the first 150 pages of THE LACE READER. A large number of characters are introduced, and their relationships and back stories are revealed in a plodding fashion. Eventually, a mystery plot is introduced, but it quickly takes a backseat to yet even more backstory that relates to the main character, Tower Whitney.
As another reviewer commented, THE LACE READER is filled with blind alleys -- a lot of scenes go nowhere, serving no purpose to the storyline. Barry is also very fond of frequently changing points of view from character to character, as well as jumping back and forth in time. There are also several scenes that may or may not be taking place in the real world. While all of this gives the book a Gothic, dreamlike quality, it also hinders the plot's momentum in a pretty severe fashion.
Everything else about the book is just average. The prose of this novel is acceptable, but in no way remarkable. The characterization approaches the level of caricature in places, especially when it comes to the religious conservatives in this book who serve as the primary villains. The ending is quite a surprise, but is ultimately little more than an unsatisfying gimmick.
Obviously, some people just adore this book, including the publisher that paid big money for it. But in the end, I found THE LACE READER a rather lackluster example of storytelling.
Possibly the most disappointing debut I've ever read. October 31, 2008
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
I was pretty excited to crack open this debut from new novelist Brunonia Barry, psyched about the creative concept behind the story as well as the Salem setting, but closed it feeling more disappointment and confusion than I can recall from any recent reading experience.
The very broken, damaged Towner Whitney (somehow also known as Sophya) has returned to Salem from years in California because her beloved great-aunt Eva has gone missing. That mystery is solved immediately - well, partially - upon Towner's return so it's not a focal point of the story, and the real mystery is Towner herself. The first would be why on earth the girl has two distinctly different names, but let's not belabor the point. No, the bigger mystery is what on earth is going on with this woman. From the flashes we're given it's clear that she's been hospitalized, most recently for a physical condition and in the more distant past, a murkier mental one. The story we're told is that she had a twin sister, Lyndley, from whom she was raised separately, who committed suicide years before. Their mother May lives like a hermit on one end of Yellow Dog Island, running a sort of underground railroad for domestic abuse victims, and May's sister Emma lives at the other end. It was Emma who raised Lyndley, having been given the child by her sister because she couldn't have any of her own. This turns out to be a tragic disaster, though, when Emma's lout of a husband, Cal, sexually abuses the girl. Worse, Cal is now a religious cult leader living nearby with his followers, and his tormenting of the Whitney family has never ended.
The Whitney women are Lace Readers, women with the gift to see prophecy through the patterns of lace. Supposedly, the author was inspired to write the novel by a dream she had about a vision read in lace, and it's an intriguing, incredibly creative idea. Amidst a beautiful, richly-illustrated setting, the story itself is dark with themes of insanity, sexual abuse and brutal domestic violence.
Sounds compelling, right? Well, it WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the fact that at the end it COMPLETELY UNRAVELS! To my frustration I can't even say why, because it would be a spoiler. All I can say is that it goes off the deep end and not in a good way. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and although she could have possibly found a way to bring it all together and at least attempt to explain away the utterly ridiculous turn the story took, she doesn't even bother. From reviews on Amazon it appears that some people liked it regardless (maybe they didn't actually finish it?), and others came to the same befuddled conclusion as I. All I did when I reached the end was scratch my head and think, "But how did......" "How could this have happened if she......." "She didn't explain what....." "Who was the person on the....." and finally, "THIS MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE!!!"
Hell, I'm not even one of those people who's a firm stickler for details, and I'll take style over substance if the style is stylish enough, so that's testament to just how ridiculous and confusing I found this. For me personally it qualifies as THE WORST ENDING EVER. Not the concept, which as I said could have been compelling if the author had bothered to really tie it together, answer all the glaring questions and numerous outright impossibilities, but she does not. I actually shook my head in disbelief when I got to the end and realized that she apparently had no intention of doing so. I'm not such an idiot that I need everything explained to me at the end, mind you, but when an author spends 400 or so pages weaving what turns out to be almost a complete fabrication....YEAH, I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS!
How disappointing that a story with such wonderful potential ended up being almost a complete waste of time and money. Honestly, I was disgusted in a way I rarely am with books. I will never read anything by this author again.
 Awesome literary debut! Poetic, mysterious. July 17, 2008
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
In the town of Salem, Massachusetts, innocent women needing to be controlled were once accused of witchcraft. Now Salem plays host to a group of women who openly parade around as witches and a whole tourist industry reenacts the past in broad daylight. A new religious group calling themselves the Calvinists goes about admonishing and threatening witches and unusual or strong women. Towner's great aunt is a lace reader, a woman who can read the future in lace. Her home and the lace reader group become a sanctuary for women escaping their abusive husbands. Together this circle of women find support and strength.
Towner comes back to town after her aunt Eva goes missing, embarking on a journey that puts her past and present life into perspective. She meets Rafferty, the detective intent on solving the case. Together, their perspectives create an aura of mystery to the events of both the past and present. Towner narrates the history of Salem, Salem's current life, her own personal history and her present in a unique pattern as finely interwoven as lace. Each chapter is prefaced by a quote from the Lace Reader's Guide written by Eva describing the art, history and technique of lace reading and the Ipswich lace makers. Towner's life is like the lace with fine threads all interwoven yet converging. The reader follows all the strands in her life, not as a straight direct kind of plot, but as different memories, some reliable and others imagined, all forming the uniqueness of a piece of art---the life of human being. Brunonia Barry's narrative presents a portrait of Towner not as an isolated separate individual but a person with whom other lives converge. Yellow Dog Island's circle of women reinforces this theme on the interconnectedness of individuals.
This novel was incredible. Brunonia Berry does deal with some hard issues like spousal abuse so if you are looking for a light, happy easy read, this is not a good choice. That warning being said, this novel was awesome! THE LACE READER inspires readers to follow with the imagination and go it where it leads. By the end, all the narrative threads and images add up to something spectacular and rich as past and present and landscape, history and the personal all combine. THE LACE READER is a novel built in layers and nuances like a person's life or like the memories in the mind or like the depths of psychology. THE LACE READER has some surprising and poetic twists towards the end. There is no guaranteed happy easily resolved ending --- but the ending has it's own kind of satisfying richness that combines deep emotion, sadness, even trauma into a new beginning and a new sense of freedom. Beautifully poetic!
The Vine Reader October 21, 2008
15 out of 21 found this review helpful
You'll notice that over half the reviews from this book are from the Amazon Vine program, a program which gives top reviewers free products in an effort to better promote the product and ultimately sell more. These reviews are easy to spot, not just by their lime green promo lines, but by the garrulous and verbose language they are usually penned with (apparently this makes their writers feel more "official"), and more poignantly by the almost universally glowing favor they have for their counterpart product. I assume that these writers feel obligated to not only write a review so they can continue receiving more mediocre free stuff from Amazon, but to make that review overwhelmingly positive for the same reasons.
I, however, do not fall into this category.
When being invited to Vine program I was intrigued, and having once been a top reviewer and then stopping for a year or more, I was also wanting to get back into writing more reviews. This seemed like a good prodding in that direction.
The first thing I noticed upon joining the Vine program was the selection quality. I had never heard of any of the authors in the meager offerings, and moreover they looked like the kind of books that *needed* this kind of additional help to sell...in other words, they just looked boring. After a bit of deliberation, "The Lace Reader" was the only one that seemed worthy of a read, so I ended up with it.
Within the first two pages I knew what I had received: A book from a first-time novelist writing about an area that she's from, recounting all to familiar events in her life (the extremely overdone "write what you know" syndrome).
Something about this book that most reviewers fail to mention is that it is written in first-person present tense. In the hands of a great author, this is still a slippery medium to navigate, especially for the entirety of a novel. In the hands of Brunonia Barry? Awkward, clumsy and disjointed. This is a vehicle best suited for experimental short stories, not full-length novels for first-time writers. It's unfair of me to slay this book in such a way without some examples, so here you go.
Barry has the laziest verbs I've encountered in recent memory. As Stephen King says, "the road to hell is paved with adverbs" and The Lace Reader is littered with them. Furthermore, even for a first-person narrative, the book is just far too introspective. Her main character, Towner, chooses to simply tell us every suspicion that pops into her head, rather than show us why it did. She always says phrases "a bit too sharply", or perhaps, "a bit too loudly." One of the many "Writing the Breakthrough Novel!" books that undoubtedly litter this writer's workspace should've informed her that good writing is showing, not telling. I don't need to have the narrator tell me she said something too sharply, I need to see the character she's speaking to frown and slightly recoil, making the narrator wonder if it came out wrong. This sort of expertise is starkly absent, and as a result many readers (as several fellow reviewers have also lamented) will be unable to connect with the characters or the narrative, and have difficulty trudging through.
Don't be fooled by the high 4-star average rating of this book. The majority of those reviews came early on in the pre-release phase from the all too majestic digital pens of my fellow Vine members who I'm sure felt compelled to rave over this average offering to up their Vine brownie points, something which doesn't exist. I have no qualms about decimating this novel, freely offered to me or not. Maybe honest and yes, sometimes negative reviews will encourage Amazon to inject some quality products for us to actually review, not to simply rid their warehouses of overstocked books or pimp out novels from the highest paying publisher.
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