City on Fire in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 01, 2021 Sarah rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, fiction, american-fiction, nyc, mysteries

Review CWs: toxic, toxic masculinity; sexual assault; abortion; eating disorder

I wanted to like this book so much. It's a literary mystery, something I love, and the pieces of the story that dealt with radical forms of idealism, a teenager grieving his dad, and the corporate takeover of family-run fireworks businesses (who knew I'd be so interested in fireworks, which I generally cannot stand) were all compelling an kept me going. The book is way too long, and though I think all the characters i ...more

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Oct 11, 2016 Carly Thompson rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2015, ebook, listened-to-on-audio, literary-fiction, 2016

Incredibly over-written and much too long. Literary fiction set in 1970s featuring a diverse cast of characters - from wealthy WASPS to punk street kids. A weak motivating mystery - who shot a college student on New Years' Day 1977? - and frequent detours into the backstory of the unhappy, wealthy WASP brother and sister duo of Regan and William made this an uninvolving and slow story. Hallberg's ten dollar words and the similarity of dialogue between characters coming from different socio-econo ...more

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Dec 10, 2015 Alison marked it as unfinished · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub, fiction, dcpl_elibrary

Paused this on 6/2/16, after book club met. It's compelling when the author settles in with a character, but is jumping around a lot, and there are a lot of sub-plots I'm not sold on. ...more

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