Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Saturday, April 9, 2016

2016 Challenge - Book 34, The World According To Garp

This was a long one!

The book I am reviewing today is:

The World According to Garp



This was under the category:  A Contemporary Novel

This is the story of T.S. Garp (the T.S. don't stand for anything) who is a child born out of wedlock to a feminist named Jenny Fields.  This is the story of Jenny before Garp came along, all the way through to Garp's death.  Jenny was as asexual as Garp was sexual.  Jenny was a nurse who became a famous writer, and Garp was a write that became almost famous.  This book tells the story of these characters - and the characters they most interact with - whole lives.

I liked this book as much as I thought it was strange.  It started out strong and I was really enjoying getting to know Jenny and her story and her little boy, Garp.  Then around page 200 (in this 433 page book) it got a little strange, and stayed pretty strange for the next 100 pages.  Garp has a lot of sexual encounters with many (many) women over his young years, and even after he gets married - he has several affairs.  His wife is aware of them all, and they have a mutual affair at the same time, which just made me shake my head.  I mean, why?  He and his wife do stay together, have three children (one who dies at a very young age), and the affairs disappear from the story.  For the last 100 pages of the book, the story picks up again, and renews my interest, and ends strong.

There is a lot of death in this book.  There is a lot of sexual encounters.  There is a transgender person - which I found very interesting because of the time period this book took place.  Almost all of the characters in this book meet tragic ends to their lives.  It kind of reminded me of the Kennedys.

I would suggest this book with the warning of the above paragraph.  It will turn several people off.  And truly - about 100 pages of this book are really strange.  I don't get the point of the affairs except to maybe prove how sexual Garp is compared to his mother.  Otherwise - it was pointless.

Stars: 3 1/2

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