The Women of Brewster Place

This is a great book, with the exception of the ending. It was anti-climactic, and it didn't provide any closure for the reader. I understand that the author was being symbolic, but the effect was flat and lifeless and false. It's a shame that the ending was so dull because the rest of the book had kept me hooked throughout. If the end had lived up to the promise of the rest of it then this review would have been a full five stars, no question. As it is, the bad ending can't diminish the excellent story/stories that came before.

2.5 Believably melodramatic until the absolute betrayal in “The Two”

I think that this novel is one that I should like more than I do. I liked the language in it and the different characters were nice. I liked how all of these people, whether they were willing to admit it or not, were tied together based on the place in which they lived. However, I have never been one for short stories, primarily because they kept switching characters, with no consistent flow of narrative. Still, I think that this book did a good job helping me care for these various peoples and their plights. The very last story, at the very end was a little confusing to me in terms of what and why it happened, but I think that is just me. For those reasons I give it a three out of five.