This Kindle Edition eBooks item from HarperCollins e-books was reviewed on 5-Nov-2008.
Run Reference eBooks. Classifications : Subjects Arts & Photography Biographies & Memoirs Business & Investing Children's Books Comics & Graphic Novels Computers & Internet Cooking, Food & Wine Entertainment Gay & Lesbian Health, Mind & Bod . Click the following link to view the cover of Run. Related topics: Subjects. Arts & Photography. Children´s Books. Entertainment. Gay & Lesbian. Health, Mind & Body. History. Home & Garden. Law. Medicine. requestid: 1b5a1c22-8271-4120-9836-42223c69249a
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1) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. I have read other works by Ann Patchett and enjoyed them, but Run left me as cold as the wintery environment in which it is set. It is the story of a Boston politician who has two adopted African American sons, and what happens after they inadvertently discover their birth mother and biological sister. The characters were well drawn but their story did not engage me as I had hoped it would and it was a real slog to get to the unsatisfying ending of the book. I would Patchett´s prior novel Bel Canto or her very moving memoir, Truth and Beauty, over this novel.¤ 2) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. The action promised to be tight, with an accident kickstarting a chain of events over the next 24 hours that threatens to blow former mayor Bernard Doyle´s pastiched family apart.
Patchett aims for a commentary on the social and racial divide, albeit in a self-conscious and obvious manner. The Doyles are a mixed-race-single-parent family, with the requisite white (black sheep) son, Sullivan, and two black adopted sons, Tip and Teddy, whom foster dad has political ambitions for.
The author also tries for a little bit of Toni Morrison´s ´Beloved´, with an overly lengthy episode involving a hospital conversation between the dead and the near-dead, as an attempt to give readers the backstory to the adopted sons´ natural mother, Tennessee. The problem with this scene is that Patchett tries to plump up an otherwise flat and ´comatose´ character in a rush job manner.
A reasonably interesting read, which however, leaves the reader wanting to feel more connected to the characters and their motivations, and for me, a more satisfying conclusion for the wayward son, Sullivan.
¤ 3) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. I really enjoyed Patron Saint of Liars and Bel Canto. This book was interesting and I liked the potential of the characters. I found Uncle Sullivan tedious at times and Tip too when he´d go on and on about fishes - but there are people like that - I just don´t want to read a detailed account of his obsession.
I still enjoyed the book. I liked Kenya, Teddy, and Tennessee. While some coincidence is fine, this book seemed ridiculously full of them. The book was fairly fast-paced and I wouldn´t rave about it but it was still worth the time.
¤ 4) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. I somehow had missed the publication of this book, but since I have never disliked an Ann Patchett novel, (which I can´t say about every author I read) I decided to pick it up and give it a try. Found this to still be true and found Run to be a very satisfying novel. Patchett has such a good way about her. Once again, she drew me in and kept me there, for the bleak and cold 24 hours in the life of the Doyle family. The descriptions and inner workings were as good as Bel Canto, but the pace was a bit more brisk. We are all connected in ways we can never know. And we all have secrets. Characters were well depicted and continue to live in my mind well after I closed the book.¤ 5) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. Mesmerizing, completely caught up in the lives of ALL the personalties in the story. A page turner to be sure and one I hated to end.¤ 6) Kindle Edition eBooks Run by HarperCollins e-books. "Since their mother´s death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children -- all his children -- safe. Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you´ve never even met. As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children." ¤Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 3-Dec-2008, , 6SB-BWB-YQB-TSB-ZGB-O8B-MYB-8 
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