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Perfect Reader
Flora Dempsey is the headstrong only child of Lewis Dempsey, a college professor and world famous critic. When Lewis passes away, Flora returns to her New England hometown to act as his literary executor. There, she finds herself responsible for a manuscript that he was secretly writing at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn't know he had. As Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary vultures alike, she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, the wounds left by her parents’ divorce, and her uncertain future.
Brimming with energy, humor, and the elbow-patchy wisdom of Flora’s still-vivid father, this enchanting debut is the uplifting story of a young woman striving to become the “perfect reader” of her father’s life, as well as her own.
Brimming with energy, humor, and the elbow-patchy wisdom of Flora’s still-vivid father, this enchanting debut is the uplifting story of a young woman striving to become the “perfect reader” of her father’s life, as well as her own.
269 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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802 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
October 24, 2012
The idea of a professor, his daughter, poetry invited me into the novel. Unfortunately, the novel devolved into a view of a female 20-something's angst expressed via the F-word far too frequently. No offense to 20-somethings, but life is too short to read novels about characters whose vocabulary is as bereft of energy, creativity, and wisdom as the characters themselves. I wonder, sometimes, if authors feel the need to limit a female character's vocabulary to four-letter words to ensure that the readers understand that their character is no Jane Eyre. Well, neither was the novel.
May 14, 2010
I really wanted to like this book more than I ultimately did. The writing was intelligent and nuanced, and the storyline, centered as it was around books and reading, was a strong draw. Unfortunately, I found a lot of promise that was never really fulfilled, making for a frustrating read in the end. I never felt emotionally invested in the characters or their lives; for a book with so few personalities, none of them were particularly well-developed except for Flora, and I found her hard to like. The glimpses of Flora's childhood were the most emotionally compelling portion of the narrative, and came too infrequently for my taste.
In the end, I found myself unable to make a connection to these characters. Though the writing was strong, the sense of detachment made it possible to walk away from the book without a qualm to do chores or run errands. When I came to the end, I was neither glad to be done nor sad to be finished- I didn't have a viceral enough reaction to the book to care one way or the other.
In the end, I found myself unable to make a connection to these characters. Though the writing was strong, the sense of detachment made it possible to walk away from the book without a qualm to do chores or run errands. When I came to the end, I was neither glad to be done nor sad to be finished- I didn't have a viceral enough reaction to the book to care one way or the other.
August 14, 2011
I was excited to read a story that centered around writing, loss, and a woman who mirrored my age. My excitement dwindled with each chapter that felt more laborious to read than it should have. Maybe because it felt too flat for me for too long in the beginning. The main character annoyed me which discouraged me to keep reading, who wants to spend time with someone that annoys you?!
Redeeming qualities:
-I enjoyed how the author plays on the themes of thinking we know everything about our parents but there is a world that our parents may not let us into or that we may not care to know. Great concept.
Redeeming qualities:
-I enjoyed how the author plays on the themes of thinking we know everything about our parents but there is a world that our parents may not let us into or that we may not care to know. Great concept.
July 10, 2010
The first sentence of the official review states, "in this delightful debut . . . "--um, there was nothing delightful about this book for me. Nothing at all. Never connected to ANY of the characters, never felt emotionally vested, really kept reading it to just see if there was a glimmer, somewhere, of delight. Not for this imperfect reader!
March 27, 2019
Maybe a Perfect Reader, but certainly not a perfect read. And I did have misgivings about trying this book due to a number of discouraging reviews, but there was a very strange case of déjà vu whenever I read the description and though I was sure I haven’t read the book (I review every single one for the record), the only way to get to the bottom of this déjà vu was really just to read this book and so I did. And so yeah…now I understand the lukewarmness of reviews, but to be fair, this is not at all a terrible book and there are enjoyable things about it. Mainly the writing, the writing is lovely, very literary, clever, elegant. In a way it overwhelms the book, but only because the plot itself and the characters within it aren’t substantial enough to support all this gorgeous prose. And Flo, the main protagonist and the main offender, is guiltiest of all for being such a…well, dud. She is a strange combination of profound inner life and almost no outer one, a peculiar bland person whose only decisive action comes at the end and is too insanely idiotic in its generosity to be described as a heroic or character defining action. Flo comes back to the small liberal academic utopia of Darwin to bury her father (a well known local figure) and to process his death. She gives up her city life and a job for this move and spends the entire novel reminiscing, pondering and ambling around. She doesn’t do much. And nothing much is doing in the town of Darwin. Whatever waves the death of her father made are barely enough to ripple the calm waters of the town. The main conflict is to do with Flo being named her father’s literary executor and in this role she must decide whether to posthumously publish the poems he left behind or not, which is a major thing of contention with her late father’s (surprise) girlfriend. And the goal is presumably for Flo to become a perfect reader…of her past, of her father and of life. Something as a character she seems quite unprepared and possibly unequipped to do, which for me her final grand gesture proved. But either way…this was a somewhat trying read, all the more so because of how well written it was. It shows promise and potential, but the book cannot subsist on language alone and it seems like that’s where this debut went wrong. Exhaustively overwritten, often to a soporific effect, this is certainly proper literature at its underwhelmingly sleepiest and unexciting. That combined with the great many similarly opinioned reviews mist have contributed to the fact that the author never followed this up with a sophomore effort. For a solo venture into literary world, this was a work of eloquent sluggishness or sluggish eloquence. And, as you can imagine, quite a slow read.
October 7, 2010
I wavered between a 2.5 and 3 but I am going to give you a few examples of writing that impressed me at the end of this review which prohibited me from giving it a 2. First, the book is difficult to get into but the writing and some of the characters,at least, mature by the end of the book.My favorite character,the dad, unfortunately dies before the first page of the book. I would have liked to get to know him better and understand how he could deal with all of the other IDIOTS in his life.The other characters are truly caricatures of what they should be,one-dimensional with a glaring flaw that is all they are to make a point- Flora, the antagonist, a 2o something who never matured past 9 years old, the age of her parent's divorce, her mother a self- centered,unhappily married woman.
Following are a few snippets that made time spent with the Perfect Reader worthwhile:
"One of the stragenesses of the town:It was defined, hourglass-like,by what passes through it"p157
"more often than not,our views ripen and soften with age.And they should soften. Youth looks soft but is hard really" p158
"Every reader has to discover the writers who move him or her most, and in those discoveries we make those writers new again...to see or know a book as all others failed to see before."
"was that the burden readers faced- beyond the world of print,no one quite measured up?" p161
She is quite wicked in her attacks on small college towns and the loftiness of academia-would be interesting to hear what someone from that field/life thinks of the book
Following are a few snippets that made time spent with the Perfect Reader worthwhile:
"One of the stragenesses of the town:It was defined, hourglass-like,by what passes through it"p157
"more often than not,our views ripen and soften with age.And they should soften. Youth looks soft but is hard really" p158
"Every reader has to discover the writers who move him or her most, and in those discoveries we make those writers new again...to see or know a book as all others failed to see before."
"was that the burden readers faced- beyond the world of print,no one quite measured up?" p161
She is quite wicked in her attacks on small college towns and the loftiness of academia-would be interesting to hear what someone from that field/life thinks of the book
July 9, 2010
Reading is an act of faith, an act of intimacy, and an act of understanding. A "perfect reader" could be said to be one with the author, at least in terms of what was written, and what what read. Both author and reader see the exact same thing.
It's a lofty concept. Perhaps an unattainable one.
Perfect Reader addresses this idea in a very personal way. When Flora Dempsey's father dies, he leaves her a generous inheritance coupled with a daunting responsibility. He is the former President of a school and a famous literary critic and expert in his own right, and Flora is named as the literary executor for her father's work, including a collection of unpublished poems entrusted to her months before his death. She gets to decide when, how, and even if the poems ever see publication. "You're my perfect reader," he told her when he gave them to her. And now she has to figure out why.
What follows is an intimate portrait of a life broken, as so many lives are broken - by divorce, by age, by distance. Flora has seen only parts of her father's life, and now she learns more about him than she ever knew. More, perhaps, than she wanted to know. She abandons her old life and re-enters his where he left it, discovering more about him through his words, and herself in her reaction to them. Her eventual decision is as much about what to do with her own life as it is what to do with her father's legacy.
Perfect Reader is not action-packed or thrilling or titillating. It's not a book to stay up all night for or devour in a greedy gulp. Sometimes it's slow and not very exciting. But it's a sharp, observant, smart, sometimes funny and occasionally heartbreaking look at loss and understanding and the power words have in our lives. The words people leave for us - in books, in poems, in letters - these words are gifts of understanding. This novel is a gift of its own, with living, breathing characters and ideas that linger. It is a book to be savored.
Perhaps a "perfect reader" is simply one who opens their heart to understanding. Perhaps a perfect reading means only that the author and the reader can, for a brief moment, understand one another, through the words. In some sense, that's how I felt reading this novel. I felt like I understood Flora, and strangely, I felt like she might have understood me.
It's a lofty concept. Perhaps an unattainable one.
Perfect Reader addresses this idea in a very personal way. When Flora Dempsey's father dies, he leaves her a generous inheritance coupled with a daunting responsibility. He is the former President of a school and a famous literary critic and expert in his own right, and Flora is named as the literary executor for her father's work, including a collection of unpublished poems entrusted to her months before his death. She gets to decide when, how, and even if the poems ever see publication. "You're my perfect reader," he told her when he gave them to her. And now she has to figure out why.
What follows is an intimate portrait of a life broken, as so many lives are broken - by divorce, by age, by distance. Flora has seen only parts of her father's life, and now she learns more about him than she ever knew. More, perhaps, than she wanted to know. She abandons her old life and re-enters his where he left it, discovering more about him through his words, and herself in her reaction to them. Her eventual decision is as much about what to do with her own life as it is what to do with her father's legacy.
Perfect Reader is not action-packed or thrilling or titillating. It's not a book to stay up all night for or devour in a greedy gulp. Sometimes it's slow and not very exciting. But it's a sharp, observant, smart, sometimes funny and occasionally heartbreaking look at loss and understanding and the power words have in our lives. The words people leave for us - in books, in poems, in letters - these words are gifts of understanding. This novel is a gift of its own, with living, breathing characters and ideas that linger. It is a book to be savored.
Perhaps a "perfect reader" is simply one who opens their heart to understanding. Perhaps a perfect reading means only that the author and the reader can, for a brief moment, understand one another, through the words. In some sense, that's how I felt reading this novel. I felt like I understood Flora, and strangely, I felt like she might have understood me.
September 18, 2010
Flora returns to the small college town of Darwin after the sudden death of her father, the college's former president and a renowned academic. Finding that she's her father's literary executor poses the problem of what to do with the poems he gave her before he died--poems she hasn't even read.
Perfect Reader is début literary fiction, and it's a promising beginning to Maggie Pouncey's career. It's a thoughtful, slow revealing of layers of the past, both Flora's childhood and her father's recent past, about aspects of which Flora realizes she knew nothing.
Flora needs to confront her past in order to move on with her present, which has been going nowhere. It's a familiar story arc in many ways, right down to the inevitable love affair which moves Flora onwards but doesn't really come to anything in itself. But it's well written and nicely structured, and will appeal to fans of books that don't rush from one incident to another but linger over a place, a time, a mood.
I enjoyed reading this novel and will look out for more from this author.
Perfect Reader is début literary fiction, and it's a promising beginning to Maggie Pouncey's career. It's a thoughtful, slow revealing of layers of the past, both Flora's childhood and her father's recent past, about aspects of which Flora realizes she knew nothing.
Flora needs to confront her past in order to move on with her present, which has been going nowhere. It's a familiar story arc in many ways, right down to the inevitable love affair which moves Flora onwards but doesn't really come to anything in itself. But it's well written and nicely structured, and will appeal to fans of books that don't rush from one incident to another but linger over a place, a time, a mood.
I enjoyed reading this novel and will look out for more from this author.
October 2, 2010
I liked the exploration of how:
*children never know their parents as well as they think they do
*two generations remember and understand past events in distinct ways
*reading someone's works or even margin notes can reveal more about
them than they may have chosen to reveal otherwise
*it's hard to outgrow roles assigned by other people, no matter what the
age
*it is rarely possible to have "a perfect reader" for one's work and,
possibly, that perfect reader needs some emotional distance from the author.
I didn't like the main character much of the time, and although she changed some, would have liked to see more growth. Perhaps in her grief, she was not yet ready to leap into her future, but at least the ending is hopeful.
Others have said that PERFECT READER is apt in its description of small-college academia. I can't speak to that, but these pages didn't make me want to try living on a small campus.
*children never know their parents as well as they think they do
*two generations remember and understand past events in distinct ways
*reading someone's works or even margin notes can reveal more about
them than they may have chosen to reveal otherwise
*it's hard to outgrow roles assigned by other people, no matter what the
age
*it is rarely possible to have "a perfect reader" for one's work and,
possibly, that perfect reader needs some emotional distance from the author.
I didn't like the main character much of the time, and although she changed some, would have liked to see more growth. Perhaps in her grief, she was not yet ready to leap into her future, but at least the ending is hopeful.
Others have said that PERFECT READER is apt in its description of small-college academia. I can't speak to that, but these pages didn't make me want to try living on a small campus.
March 5, 2016
I can rarely resist the phrase "delightful debut" - we shall see.
Well, I didn't see a lot of delight. Quite decently written and there are some good ideas to think about - how well do we know our parents, how well do we remember, let alone understand, the past and how does that compare with how other people remember it, the conflicts of town and gown, and, I admit more, but the bottom line was I didn't really like anybody in this book, especially not the main character Flora ... but I didn't really dislike anybody either. I just did not feel any connection with anyone. Perhaps this was something the author wanted, a manifestation of Flora's grief and confusion? I couldn't figure out what caused Flora to change, merely the passage of time, a conversation? Couldn't much care. I finished it, so there was apparently something compelling about it but it left me feeling fairly flat and remarkably un-delighted.
Well, I didn't see a lot of delight. Quite decently written and there are some good ideas to think about - how well do we know our parents, how well do we remember, let alone understand, the past and how does that compare with how other people remember it, the conflicts of town and gown, and, I admit more, but the bottom line was I didn't really like anybody in this book, especially not the main character Flora ... but I didn't really dislike anybody either. I just did not feel any connection with anyone. Perhaps this was something the author wanted, a manifestation of Flora's grief and confusion? I couldn't figure out what caused Flora to change, merely the passage of time, a conversation? Couldn't much care. I finished it, so there was apparently something compelling about it but it left me feeling fairly flat and remarkably un-delighted.
June 15, 2010
For a few months when she was a preteen, the narrator had a best friend who she dominated. Things happened and the friendship was over. Now, years later, her father had died and left her some poems of his to edit and maybe publish. He claimed she was his perfect reader and would do the right thing for him. What we don't want to know about what our parents get up to when we're away. I got tired of the narrator's negative assumptions about everything and everybody. Perfect whiner.
November 3, 2010
I thought this book was really well written. It seems like every sentence was crafted and thought out. That is why I gave it 4 stars--for the writing. I did not, however, love or feel real connected to the story. After awhile I felt like the main character was a little whiny and I didn't feel like I cared intensely about where the story was going. I think that Pouncey is a gifted writer though, and look forward to her next work.
July 24, 2013
For the third time I sat down and tried to read this book, and for the third time I closed it without reaching the end. I tend to be able to trudge through slower stories when I have run out of other books to read. It's obvious, though, that this book is going nowhere, and the main character is an irritating and whiny little brat. I just created an "Unfinished" shelf on Goodreads simply to have somewhere to put this disappointment of a book.
August 31, 2010
I did not like this book at all. I rarely have two star reviews because I usually stop reading if it is that bad. However, the book is well written and I kept thinking it would improve. The main character was not likable at all and somewhat insufferable.
August 1, 2010
didn't finish -never caught my attention
September 25, 2011
I couldn't finish this book.
November 4, 2011
Ugh. Horridly boring book. Turns out the reviews didn't lie. I just can't bring myself to finish it. The protagonist is a huge bore who has a great big stick up her bum.
January 29, 2013
Very interesting and well written book. I didn't like the main character of the book but it was a good coming of age story. It was our book club selection for January.
April 6, 2014
Took me forever to finish this book. It's so dry and I feel like the author just tried too hard to prove that she was an English major.
July 23, 2010
Boring. Not worth reading
February 20, 2012
meh. I expected to like this story. It turned out that i didn't.
August 12, 2020
Here is a self-indulgent tale of a self-indulgent woman trying to come to terms with her father's death. Ultimately, I didn't care for it too much.
The book has plenty of good traits. The writing is pretty solid, for the most part. Maggie Pouncey's writing style is smart, often too smart, and its slow, almost immobile, pace is perfect for a character stuck in her old hometown with no drive to leave.
Main character Flora is both incredibly well conceived and incredibly unlikable. While many reviews on Goodreads didn't find her all that captivating, her struggles with grief and her own depression and feelings of inadequacy were very clear and relatable to me. It could be pretty insufferable at times, but for the most part I was interested throughout the story, and the moments where the narrative slips back to her youth helped explain her actions in the present. Unfortunately, almost every other character was bad in a bad way. Few had any stake in the very limited narrative, and outside of one character (set up to be the uneducated Christian), the dialogue was SO unrealistic. It's as if everyone in the book wrote three or four drafts of each of their lines of dialogue. Outside of a few moments, it all felt too rehearsed and too empty. A good portion of the book felt like Maggie Pouncey needed me to know how clever she was.
I enjoyed some of the themes of this book. The question of who is best equipped to say the best interests of the deceased, the lie of closure, and the confusion of being in your 20s and not having any idea what to do with your life speak a lot to me. I just wish the book did something more with these ideas. None of theme really served as a central theme that carried the whole book, and when paired with the awful over-edited dialogue, it just felt messy. It seems Maggie Pouncey spent so much time on the details that she forgot why she was writing the story in the first place.
Overall, it was fine. I liked it okay. There was a lot of good, and a lot of bad. If you like slow burns, I'd say check it out. But other than that, it's a pass from me.
The book has plenty of good traits. The writing is pretty solid, for the most part. Maggie Pouncey's writing style is smart, often too smart, and its slow, almost immobile, pace is perfect for a character stuck in her old hometown with no drive to leave.
Main character Flora is both incredibly well conceived and incredibly unlikable. While many reviews on Goodreads didn't find her all that captivating, her struggles with grief and her own depression and feelings of inadequacy were very clear and relatable to me. It could be pretty insufferable at times, but for the most part I was interested throughout the story, and the moments where the narrative slips back to her youth helped explain her actions in the present. Unfortunately, almost every other character was bad in a bad way. Few had any stake in the very limited narrative, and outside of one character (set up to be the uneducated Christian), the dialogue was SO unrealistic. It's as if everyone in the book wrote three or four drafts of each of their lines of dialogue. Outside of a few moments, it all felt too rehearsed and too empty. A good portion of the book felt like Maggie Pouncey needed me to know how clever she was.
I enjoyed some of the themes of this book. The question of who is best equipped to say the best interests of the deceased, the lie of closure, and the confusion of being in your 20s and not having any idea what to do with your life speak a lot to me. I just wish the book did something more with these ideas. None of theme really served as a central theme that carried the whole book, and when paired with the awful over-edited dialogue, it just felt messy. It seems Maggie Pouncey spent so much time on the details that she forgot why she was writing the story in the first place.
Overall, it was fine. I liked it okay. There was a lot of good, and a lot of bad. If you like slow burns, I'd say check it out. But other than that, it's a pass from me.
January 14, 2020
Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey follows Flora Dempsey in her efforts to be her deceased father's literary executor in a small American college town called Darwin.
Flora returns to Darwin upon her father's passing to find that he has left a bunch of poems that she didn't know he had written and that he had a girlfriend that she was not aware of.
The girlfriend, Cynthia, attempts to befriend Flora and to convince her to have the poems edited for eventual publication.
But Flora is wary of Cynthia, and most people generally. She begins an affair with Paul, who was her father's lawyer, but she is half-hearted in that, at least emotionally.
The story drags a bit, and gets a bit reflective on literary matters. Flora's personality and strange behaviours are somewhat wearing, and I struggled to really like this story at any stage.
Pouncey's writing is generally elegant and pleasant to read, and some of her dialogue is especially good, but the plot left me feeling less than satisfied.
Flora returns to Darwin upon her father's passing to find that he has left a bunch of poems that she didn't know he had written and that he had a girlfriend that she was not aware of.
The girlfriend, Cynthia, attempts to befriend Flora and to convince her to have the poems edited for eventual publication.
But Flora is wary of Cynthia, and most people generally. She begins an affair with Paul, who was her father's lawyer, but she is half-hearted in that, at least emotionally.
The story drags a bit, and gets a bit reflective on literary matters. Flora's personality and strange behaviours are somewhat wearing, and I struggled to really like this story at any stage.
Pouncey's writing is generally elegant and pleasant to read, and some of her dialogue is especially good, but the plot left me feeling less than satisfied.
September 11, 2024
I’m feeling a little torn on the main character, Flora. Like on one hand she was whiny and annoying and mean sometimes and it’s like dude chill not everyone is out to get you. But also Cynthia was pushy and like yes you loved her dad for a year or two and you had a great connection but at the end of the day that was her dad & she’s literary executor and maybe you could not push her for shit she’s clearly not ready for. I think both characters were unlikable in their own ways lol
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2020
Title explained on p. 67 - “ [Flora’s father] had wanted to be a poet,... and started writing...the stack of poems...And then he had given them to her,...and now she had to be his perfect reader, the perfect understander, living not in her own imagination, but in his.”
November 3, 2018
A thoughtful book . A gentle look at loss and subtle self discoveries along the way. Reflections of the past as many do when a loved one is lost.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
May 26, 2021
I found this book dull. Never warmed up to any of the characters.
August 1, 2022
DNF at 28%
Held little appeal
Held little appeal
August 22, 2024
Unlike most readers, I truly enjoyed this novel…very well written.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews