Reviews
I realize I'm very much in the minority here but I did not love or even enjoy this book. I didn't care about the characters or what happened to them, it felt too long and extremely disjointed jumping between the main characters past and present with no real transition or sense of bearing as to why the stories are being told. I found it unrelatable and uninteresting. Obviously, this one just wasn't for me.
i didn’t enjoy this. i think this book makes a worthwhile and sometimes successful attempt at exploring truths about the american south, but gets caught in its own ~tragic glory~. the narrator’s supposed Wit and Snark gets old after the 25th page, and all of the female characters are the exact same woman with slightly different key identifying characteristics.
What Pat Conroy does best is writing characters. The two books, I have read by him, are very character driven. His characters are just so real, they all have their flaws and absolutely done of them are perfect. The reader can find something to relate to themselves in all of the characters. They will also feel very much an emotional bond with these characters. Another thing that Pat Conroy is great at is making the setting of the book a character in itself. The low country setting is just beautiful and you can almost smell the salt in the air by how descriptive and lyrical the writing is. The writing. The writing is beautiful, as stated earlier it is lyrical and descriptive. It has a nice flow to it and the reader will never have a hard time picturing the scene that is taking place. There is a catch though, with the book being so descriptive, it does seem to go on forever. I’m sorry, I do not care who you are, an almost fifty page chapter is never a good idea. I will just lose interest. Once again, The Prince of Tides is a character driven story. There is a plot but it is not the main point. I do like the plot of Tom having to tell the doctor, the life story of the Wingo family for us to get that character development. I did predict some points, I won’t say them here as I do not spoil novels in my reviews. Some things were completely random and so out there, though. Trust me, the reader is in for a wild ride in this book. I did struggle with the intrigue. I dreaded picking up the book at times knowing that it would be dense with the long chapters. I was even following along with the audiobook, so you would think that it would go by faster but it didn’t. Overall, this was a good book. It did take me over a week to get through but I think it was worth it. The Prince of Tides will stick with me because of all the endurances that these characters had to go through. This was a beautiful book and it paints a picture in your head of life and the beauty of it even though we go through all sorts of times, dark and pleasant. I do recommend picking this one up. Read my full review on my blog: https://izzyreads.blog/2020/08/19/the...
I absolutely devoured this book. The characters are complex. The writing is breathtaking. It felt like the shortest 650+ page book I've ever read. You should read it. "But why only 3 stars???" you ask... (mild spoilers for a predictable and absolutely terrible plot point ahead) Tom and Susan's "extracurricular" activity is so unbelievably stupid and unnecessary. It felt like it was put in there because the masses need some sort of juicy love interest to keep them interested. Take that entire arc out of it and I'd probably give this 5 stars.
