a year down yonder

Reader response to A Year Down Yonder

i'd just like to say right now...

this was THE STUPIDEST ENDING IN THE HISTORY OF ENDINGS.

EVER.

more on that later.

UPDATE: 4.8.06
Ubestinkinglievable. This was an awesome story until the last chapter. It wasn't so much like a linear novel- more like a set of stories- a la house on mango street. It was really humorous. The grandmother really reminds me of Momma in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It's pretty interesting. I really really hated the last chapter. It seemed like Peck either 1) got sick of writing it, 2) didn't know what to write, 3) didn't want to fill the void between point A and point B, or 4) didn't care about finishing the book. He obviously didn't keep his audience in mind when finishing the story. Bad storytelling. BAD storytelling to skip a crapload of events and then just have your protagonist live happily ever after. That's not realistic.... and the book is not a fairy tale, so it just blows the whole production sky high. to quote Ghostbusters, my anger "exploded like a frog on a hotplate." Who does that? This story wasn't as corny as Hoot, but the ending was. I want to meet richard peck so i can shake him and ask, "what the hell were you thinking?" I guess the story takes place over the course of a year... but he could have at least given us some warning... I dunno... I just get the distinct feeling that a woman would have written the ending completely different. This takes place in the 30s.... right around the time my grampa was born... and it takes place in central/southern IL... which is where I lived for 8 years of my life... and I know where mattoon is ... and I've lived in chicago... and I visit family there on occasion. It was touching to kind of relive the memories... my brother and I spent the summer at my grama and grampa's house... so I could identify with the character on that level. The protagonist is a jr. in high school... but I think this story is fit more for 7-8th graders.... I dunno it just seems really remedial to me... not a myriad of difficult vocab words lurking in the pages like Harry Potter or How I Live Now.

Over all, a good story, but the ending left me with a HORRIBLE feeling... like seeing a move that leaves me hanging but then gives me a bad ending on top of it... I just really think it would've been different had a woman written it. I almost want to cry. It's like the quintessential fairy tale ending... but it's crap because the rest of the story doesn't even remotely resemble a fairy tale.