Regular marked price: $13.95Discount Price: $11.16
Cost Savings: $2.79 (20%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781400077526
ISBN number: 1400077524
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: June 12, 2007
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: June 12, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 473441
Studio: Vintage
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This is the story of the Bramble family--Margaret, Max, and Edie--three adult siblings careening through wildly different byways of adult life. Margaret, mother of three, is about to take her ailing father into the tumult and chaos of her already overcrowded home. Edie is young and single, but struggling mightily to anchor her solitary life. Max, newly married, newly a father, is buckling under the weight of new responsibilities. Over the course of one critical season, a long hidden secret will be revealed, remaking each of them, and all they thought they knew about themselves.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
The Brambles
The book starts out with a mother/father whom now have grown children and are looking to rent a place. Then we skip around to the three grown children and their lives. The mother passed away too soon in a plane crash and gramps has cancer. He is going to live with Margaret. From there we skip back and forth between the three siblings as they try to come to terms with losing their mother and now their father.
I enjoyed this book but some of it just didn't fit. Like Tammy, what point did she really have? If someone was sitting by my house and going threw my garbage I wouldn't just tell her to go away I would make sure she was escorted. The ending seems to be as if the author just didn't know how to finish it.
This doesn't deter me from wanting to read other books by this author however. She wrote dead-on about being a mother, and for that character alone I made it through the book.
Rated by buyers 
-
OK, So I think this book would be better titled "The Rambles"... I had never read any of Minot's work before but seen this book on amazon.com and thought the plot sounded great so i bought it... and started reading it... 4 MONTHS AGO!! I am the type of person that if i love a book I cant put it down, and if i start a book i must finish it... I finally did today. I have to say that the story line is silly, almost pointless, and the author goes on and on and gets so far off subject you forget what was happening in that part of the book... The plot twist 3/4 of the way through the book was stupid, not even exciting at all and almost a little confusing. The story line would have been intresting had the author not rambled so damn much and devloped the people in the story a little more, they were very under devloped and offered you nothing to like about them, there fore no one in the story to root for or no reason to keep you turing the pages, and not just through the book away and chalk it up to wasted time... Seriously... I had high hopes for this book but they were pretty much crushed... Dont buy it...
Rated by buyers -
there's some really great stuff here. i especially liked the perspective on motherhood. but the plot twist that comes about 3/4 through the book and totally out of nowhere did not fit with the rest of the book. what had been a subtle, intimate portrait of a regular family dealing with real life struggles becomes this wacky, far-fetched caricature. the weird ending overshadows the majority of great story.
Rated by buyers 
-
The adult characters in this book are exceptionally well-drawn, especially Margaret. Perhaps I'm extra appreciative because they are superficially similar to me, but I have never read a book where the characters seemed so real. They are modestly flawed, reflecting their respective life-stages. However, they are also likable, intelligent, and loving towards each other.
But...the story itself is not good. As others have mentioned, the big reveal is tacked-on and neither forwards a story or uncovers other facets of the characters. It's pointless. There is a peripheral character who appears in Margaret's backyard. Initially this is treated as a minor nuisance, but towards the end of the book it becomes apparent that this individual is deranged and the potential danger is ignored.
I found it very odd that the adult characters seemed so real, but Margaret's children did not seem true to their ages and were one-dimensional. Perhaps I missed something, but I read that her children were 3, 5, and 6. Yet the youngest just didn't come across as a child so close to toddler-hood. And the six-year old building a permanent fort and being a suspected reader of pornography? Weird. I have very bright children in this age range and I just don't think it's possible for a six year-old to built a usable, permanent, outdoor fort (unless he has a parent who has worked with him extensively - certainly not a suburban boy with a father working long hours with a long commute). The fort is one minor thing, but the children being portrayed as older than their actual ages was consistent.
I think this book would have been better as a series of short stories about a family. Then the effort to tie the characterizations together with a lame plot could have been abandoned. The plot was just not worthy of the characters.
But overall, this book was very, very good just for the wonderful characters.
Rated by buyers -
This book missed the mark. I'm not much for soap operas but if I wanted to indulge I'd watch one on T.V. and not waste my time reading one.
Find other books like this one:
