Friday, March 25, 2011

Friday Book Review

NemesisNemesis by Philip Roth

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oh how I wanted to love this book. The story was so promising: a polio outbreak in Newark during the summer of '44 and the man who was in the center of it, and the reviews were fantastic. Unfortunately, I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Even the main character, Bucky, seemed more like a sketch than a fully realized person, which may have been the author's intent as Bucky is portrayed as a very stoic person. I have never lived with the fear of polio, thanks to the vaccine, but this book did little to make me feel the characters' terror at the disease. The ending felt rushed, I would have liked to have read more of Bucky's story (I will not go into that here as it contains some spoilers.) While this wasn't a terrible book, and Mr. Roth has a lovely way with words, I felt it lacked great emotion.

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