About Grace

About Grace
Anthony Doerr
416 pgs.














Amazon Blurb -


The majesty of nature, the meaning of courage, the redemptive power of love and the pathos of isolation—all are gracefully explored in Doerr's story of the price paid for a gift. So why does so little seem to happen in this beautiful, ponderous and sometimes monotonous first novel by the author of the exquisite collection The Shell Collector? David Winkler has seen glimpses of the future ever since he was a boy. As a 32-year-old hydrologist in Anchorage, Alaska, he dreams of his future wife; soon they meet, fall in love and run away to Ohio, where she gives birth to their daughter, Grace. But when he dreams that he fails to save Grace from a flood, Winkler abandons wife and child, hoping to flee the future. He becomes a hermetic handyman on a Caribbean island near St. Vincent, befriended by a local family. The years pass until, emboldened by his surrogate family's grown daughter, a gifted marine biologist, Winkler realizes that he must embark on a journey to discover if Grace is alive. This is a lyrical tale tuned a bit too fine: Doerr's dreamy prose accords more attention to nature than character, so that Winkler, transfixed by the wonders of water and snowflakes but singularly unreflective about his actual life, is a frustratingly opaque protagonist. There are gorgeous moments here, but a stifling lack of story. 
*****

Ok, this book STUNK!!!  I broke my cardinal rule of never ever reading a sucky book again and did with this one.  Why?  Cause the premise was so freaking good!  David Winkler has dreams of what will happen.  Sounds really good, and so sad that he dreams his daughter's death and runs away thinking that'll save her.  For 29 years he stays away in the Caribbean, and then comes home.  I kept thinking, "Oh this has gotta pick up" well it didn't.  After the 100 pages I shoulda just stopped, but then it became a matter of seeing if my hunch was right (it wasn't).  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  I did not like any of the characters and I hated Winkler.  I wanted to hit him in the head with a bat!  He was sooooo stupid!! I have absolutely learned my lesson, if a book doesn't grab me by the 1st 75 pages, stop reading and move on.

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