Friday, March 16, 2007

2007 book 31

Judy Budnitz's If I Told You Once
I'm not sure how this book remained off my radar for so long--it's the sort of thing that is typically right up my alley. It starts off strong, with a young girl in a tiny town in Eastern Europe around the time of WWI; lots of folk tales work their way into her narrative and it's all very compelling and exciting. Eventually the voices of her daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter are added into the mix, which is where things unravel a bit. For one thing, the middle two women are wholly unsympathetic, and Budnitz doesn't do a great job of distinguishing any of the women's voices from the others'. Things do pick up a bit at the end, so I'll give it a B+.

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