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January 2009: Tom Perrotta: The Abstinence Teacher

Keen to read this one. I've read and enjoyed some of Perrotta's earlier novels - Election, Joe College and The Wishbones.
 
Yeah, Election was great. Bad Haircut, on the other hand, is weak. I'm hoping this book will be better :).
 
I'm going to try and get my copy tomorrow. Watch; Barnes and Noble will have every other Perotta book but this one ;).
 
I just started it last night--I missed last month's book club so I'm glad to be back on board. Not too sure how I feel about this one yet though.
 
Guess I'll start things off.

For the most part I enjoyed this book immensely. I was intrigued by the story and I liked the development of Tim. Although I started off liking Ruth and was put off by Tim, eventually my stance on the two characters began to change. By the end I thought Ruth was close-minded and stubborn (what, exactly, was her problem with Christianity?) while Tim ended up being a person who was open to different ideas and willing to travel outside his comfort zone. I knew the two were going to become closer after having read the summary, but I wasn't expecting them to reverse roles/stereotypes. A good move on Perotta's part IMO.

That said, the ending was poor. I can enjoy a good open-ended conclusion if the story calls for it but in this case I felt it to be a cheat. There were too many events in need of a resolution and ending the novel in the middle of it all feels too easy.
 
Anamnesis said:
Guess I'll start things off.

For the most part I enjoyed this book immensely. I was intrigued by the story and I liked the development of Tim. Although I started off liking Ruth and was put off by Tim, eventually my stance on the two characters began to change. By the end I thought Ruth was close-minded and stubborn (what, exactly, was her problem with Christianity?) while Tim ended up being a person who was open to different ideas and willing to travel outside his comfort zone. I knew the two were going to become closer after having read the summary, but I wasn't expecting them to reverse roles/stereotypes. A good move on Perotta's part IMO.

That said, the ending was poor. I can enjoy a good open-ended conclusion if the story calls for it but in this case I felt it to be a cheat. There were too many events in need of a resolution and ending the novel in the middle of it all feels too easy.
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I don't think we're meant to be discussing the book until Monday. If I'm wrong, I apologize. That's why I've been sitting on my hands up until now. :whistling:
 
OK, you know how occasionally, you'll pick up a book and find something that annoys you on the very first page? I was frowning before I was 4 pages into The Abstinence Teacher - the reason being the character of Randall, about whom we're left absolutely no ambiguity that he's gay. Really, really gay. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for more gay characters in fiction, but when Perrotta points it out 3 or 4 times in the first few paragraphs it just feels... clumsy. It's always nice if characters aren't defined exclusively by their skin or sexual orientation, and given the book's theme, it immediately makes me go "Oh boy, here's the stereotypical gay best friend from every Julia Roberts movie who's going to get bullied by the mean fundamentalists."

Now I'm 60 pages in and he's already been fleshed out more, so perhaps I'll turn out to be completely wrong - maybe it's me who's a victim of too many stereotypes. Who knows, maybe that's part of Perrotta's plan: make us think we're seeing a stereotype and then surprise us. We'll see. If that's the case, then just consider this an example of how one shouldn't judge a book by its [-]cover[/-] first chapter. :whistling:
 
Wells83 said:
I don't think we're meant to be discussing the book until Monday. If I'm wrong, I apologize. That's why I've been sitting on my hands up until now. :whistling:
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I just put the 5th because of the holidays,feel free to discuss.:)
 
beer good said:
OK, you know how occasionally, you'll pick up a book and find something that annoys you on the very first page? I was frowning before I was 4 pages into The Abstinence Teacher - the reason being the character of Randall, about whom we're left absolutely no ambiguity that he's gay. Really, really gay. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for more gay characters in fiction, but when Perrotta points it out 3 or 4 times in the first few paragraphs it just feels... clumsy. It's always nice if characters aren't defined exclusively by their skin or sexual orientation, and given the book's theme, it immediately makes me go "Oh boy, here's the stereotypical gay best friend from every Julia Roberts movie who's going to get bullied by the mean fundamentalists."

Now I'm 60 pages in and he's already been fleshed out more, so perhaps I'll turn out to be completely wrong - maybe it's me who's a victim of too many stereotypes. Who knows, maybe that's part of Perrotta's plan: make us think we're seeing a stereotype and then surprise us. We'll see. If that's the case, then just consider this an example of how one shouldn't judge a book by its [-]cover[/-] first chapter. :whistling:
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I thought the first chapter or two were pretty bad in general. The writing felt juvenile to me and the characters two-dimensional. I'm glad I stuck with it because I had serious doubts at first but once Perrotta got going, I think he wove a wonderful story.
 
Wells83 said:
I thought the first chapter or two were pretty bad in general. The writing felt juvenile to me and the characters two-dimensional. I'm glad I stuck with it because I had serious doubts at first but once Perrotta got going, I think he wove a wonderful story.
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I thought the exact same thing. I'm about 100 pages in now and it's gradually getting more interesting, but for a few chapters there I thought I'd started Marian Keyes' latest novel.
 
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