I just read this again after ~40 years and, though I didn't remember the details, it was certainly as hard-hitting as the first time through. Highly recommended. Unless you're looking for a comedy. The characters are memorable and will stay with me for a long time. ( )

Note to self: why pay for therapy when you can just unload your problems to a polite deaf man for free? ( )

Well, that was eviscerating. I am not sure that should not be my whole review, but I will say a bit more.

I know that Faulkner is considered to be the Dean of Southern Despair, but I would argue that Carson McCullers' depictiion of hollowness seems more honest and both more personal and somehow more universal than Faulkner's. When her people soldier on in the face of despair it somehow seems a less noble option than ending it all. It feels like they are chickens running around with their heads cut off. Already dead but beholden to their reflexes and maybe a dab of muscle memory. There is a discussion to be had about this topic, but it would be spoiler-laden, and I don't want to go there. It would be a hell of a book club discussion.

An extraordinary novel improbably written by a woman in her early 20s (she was 23 when it was published.) Read it if you want to be reminded of the power of literature. Don't read it if you want to feel good.

One note -- I read this on my Kindle, but in the last 1/3 switched off between text and audio. The audiobook is read by Cherry Jones, and it is exceptionally good. I am still glad I read this, the language is too good to not spend time with, but I think when I feel the need to be gutted again I will listen to the whole on audiobook. ( )

This was slow going yet interesting enough in parts to keep me locked in. I enjoyed the main characters except for the drunk and the man in love with a teenage girl. One was too brash and the other kinda icky. One stayed the same through the end, another actually made changes. You can read it to find out for yourself. :)

Someone said this book is *not* about unrequited love. I think it really is. Not romantic love (probably) but friendship and connection love. It was about our need to be seen, to be heard (if I dare say) and the lengths we'll go for that, and how many times it is counterfeit.

I liked it enough. It had a huge Grapes of Wrath feel for me at times. ( )

It has been a long time since a book has made me weep while reading it. ( )