Great House (2010) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 5 stars

“A book about a desk and the lives it touches. It should be required reading.”

• Rated 3 stars

“I like this book but I almost needed a genogram chart to figure out who was who. It jumps through a few different families and it was tricky to figure out who was connected.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Not nearly as good as its predecessor History of Love. Had a hard time reading this, even though there were some beautiful, haunting passages.”

• Rated 3 stars

“confusing! not for reading by the water!”

• Rated 5 stars

“Complicated and thought provoking. This one I must read again.”

• Rated 3 stars

“another book club read. Not the easiest read; sometimes I got lost about who was talking . I liked the premise of following a desk throughout history but wish it had been an easier read.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Very slow, an unlikeable narrator, and very long sentences and chapters. And then it gets better! Different narrators tell their stories, which partially link up, all anchored around an old desk. The theme is that you never know a whole story. A frustrating thesis but inherently true to life.”

• Rated 2 stars

“Without question, Krauss's novels concern topics of enduring significance-history, memory, aging and death. In Great House she, like so many other authors writing contemporary fiction, utilizes intersecting stories to convey those concerns. For me, it didn't work. The shifting first-person POVs often felt contrived. Nor did I care about any of them; those not scarcely rendered (which may have been the point) were unlikable and two-dimensional. Ultimately, I felt this was a novel of ideas, Krauss' own Great House, about which I felt "...disappointment, then the relief of something at last sinking away" when I had finished it. I adored A History of Love, so it pains me to write this.”

• Rated 1 stars

“Could not get into it - I tried 3 of the stories and gave up.”

• Rated 2 stars

“So disappointed. History of Love is one of my all-time favorite books and I was thrilled to read another of Nicole Krauss's books. The style that worked so well in History of Love was taken to extremes in this novel in a manner that made it almost unreadable. Had to almost force myself to finish it.”