A critically acclaimed glimpse into Australian life from 1944 to 64 featuring two families, the Lambs and the Pickles, brought together in one house. Emotionally, I flipped between love and hate every few turns of the pages. I detest books with no speech marks and even considering the author’s style, I don’t see why he didn’t use the correct punctuation. It wasn’t always immediately clear who was saying what, which I found to be an enormous distraction. Not often, but still annoying. It’s rather tell instead of show, but there’s a rhythm to the narrative that makes this work. As to the story… I loved it in places, loathed it in others. When I loved it, the book was wonderful. When I didn’t, I felt utterly bored. Some characters don’t serve the story, and neither do some of the supernatural elements. Sometimes the story is magical, but other times insufferable as we wander through these lives with no apparent direction or real purpose. I wish I found it as wonderful as others do, because when I loved it, that love was real, but I found it to be too much of a rollercoaster ride with too many dips way down low. Therefore, I’m not knocking anyone who adores this book — not that I would, anyway. Let people love what they love and there’s much to love here. There are some sumptuous sentences, but I think an abiding like of stepping into a life to visit without expectation of an efficacious outcome. ( )

I quite enjoyed this book. From start to finish, I quite enjoyed it. That's pretty warm praise, since so many three star books fade in and out, which mean you might go fifty pages without having much fun. However, in my view the book never quite soared as [b:Breath|2176735|Breath|Tim Winton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1317792624l/2176735._SY75_.jpg|1405064] does.

There were three main obstacles to enjoyment for me. Firstly, the characters are mostly pretty unlikeable and treat each other like shit. It's hard to feel sympathy for people who are entirely responsible for the position they find themselves in. Secondly, I didn't find that the magical realist stuff added anything to the story. I guess it's there to make the whole thing less dire, and I guess it succeeds in that regard, but it never once moved me or dazzled me or however you're supposed to react to that stuff. Thirdly, the self-consciousness of Winton's prose gets annoying. He's a wonderful writer, but the business of jamming two words together ("oilstill", "freshcooked") did nothing for me and nor did the passages when he rolled up his sleeves and said "look, I'm creative writing!" Much like the magic realism, it mostly didn't detract from the story, but nor did it add to it. In the end it just held me back from engaging wholeheartedly.

Apart from the above, the prose is very good. It's clear and well paced. When he gets on with saying what happened to whom and who did what, Tim Winton is very good.

A problem I found with the characters was just that I had trouble relating to them. I don't believe in luck, and I find gambling and gamblers pretty boring. I don't believe in Hard Work, either. Nor have any of my family or close friends fallen into those categories. So there just wasn't much for me to relate to in here.

Nevertheless, Winton hits the mark with his epic tone and an engaging, sprawling narrative. I was left with a sense that if you just zoom out far enough and put the right filter on the lens, every family's story is a profound one. Unfortunately for me, the feeling wasn't quite strong enough to make me love this book.

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This is going to be one of my stand-out reads for the year. It's SUPERB!
Opening just after WW2, we meet two families who end up sharing a ramshackle and unlovely house - the Pickles - drunken floozy Dolly and her gambling husband . And their tenants- the driven Lambs- who, under the supervision of mother Oriel- open a successful grocery store.
And their children- anorexic Rose Pickles, the golden-child Fish Lamb, who suffers a brain-impairing accident in the first pages and will never be the same again- and his depressed brother Quick.
As twenty years roll by in Perth, as good and bad luck befall them, there is, too, a weird strand of magic realism running through a tale of everyday folk. And I'd say Winton carries it off- it just makes the saga SING.
Fabulous writing. ( )

I’m torn between two and three stars because on one hand I didn’t really contemplate dropping it unfinished which I usually do with my two-star books, but on the other hand in no universe could I say that I ‘liked’ it. I just didn’t actively hate it.

Overall, the reading experience felt like this:
↘This is weird, and also where are the quotation marks. ↗ Oh wow, it’s actually interesting. ↘ My god, I’m dying of boredom. ↗ Okay, it’s not that bad. ↘ God, someone kill me plz.

It was hard to connect to anyone or feel much during the whole story, except the anger at Sam’s gambling addiction (you have frikkin kids, you idiot, try thinking about someone but yourself) and also the incredible sadness of what happened to Fish. Every time he made an appearance on the page, there was a lump in my throat. The child purity of him, I don’t know. It got me every time. I think the only moment in the book that gave me actual joy was when Quick and Rose was going on vacation and decided to take Fish with them who wanted it so so much.

The magical realism which was surprisingly there too didn't help things one bit. I don't mind the concept in general (I did read 'One hundred years of solitude' six times) but in this book it just weirded me out. Was the house evil? Did the pig talk? Why were we in Fish's mind sometimes? Was it even his mind? What's up with all the hallucinations?

And reading the last (or rather next-to-last) scene felt like finishing the last episode of the TV Show ‘Lost’: I didn’t understand a thing but cried my eyes out.
What happened to Fish?? Did he die? Did they let him die? What? Why? What’s happening??
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Reread because it is such a good read. The human interest and the character definition is so well done. ( )