Here I Am discussion

Have you finished it? Tough read in places. I actually enjoyed it to a point, but the book was a bit bloated. Great story if all the fall of Israel stuff cut out, though that is a rather chilling idea.

I think you really have to like the characters otherwise it's probably going to seem endless.

It IS endless!!

I was disappointed in the book. I loved his other two books. This just didn't hit the mark for me.

I almost gave up on this but the funeral scene won me over and I finished it.

That is an excellent scene.

Early on, it was a tough read. He had been great in earlier books so I wanted to push on. I'm sort of glad I did!

I joined the group to understand if my feeleing about this book were just mine, but no.
I found it a little bit slow, flat in a way. I cried for the dog, but that's me. Though I must admit the Argo has been the only character in the book that can rapresente a real vivid feeling. What do you think?
Sorry for my english but this is not my mothertongue language.

I was curious to see what other people thought about this one. I felt that the second half didn't meet the promise of the first half.

The unending scenes ruminating on the fall of Israel became tedious after a while. There only utility was really to show the character flaws in Jacob - flaws that were abundantly clear within the first fifty pages.

I also thought it was strange how Julia's perspective dwindled away to nothing as the book progressed.

But, I think you guys are a right about the funeral scene. I thought that one was very powerful.

Thanks for sharing your insights!

This is my second "reading" of the book. The first time I stopped pretty early on and thought I hated the book because it was depressing and Jacob is an unforgivable ass in the first 50 pages. I recently found myself with nothing to read and decided to give it another go. I'm currently about 70% through the book. Granted, I haven't finished it yet, but I don't share the popular view that the second half is worse than the first. I actually think the Israel sections are as interesting or more so than the people, and (at least so far) they're well integrated into the text.

I agree with Georgia that it's interesting that Julia's perspective seems to become less and less prominent as the book goes on. Even though Jacob is the first one to seek companionship outside the family, Julia is the one that ends up being exiled from the family narrative when she starts falling for Mark. I just assumed that's because the book is written by a man, but it could be intentional for other reasons. But it's especially interesting that the family is so patrilineal given that Judaism is a matrilineal religion. At least in my own family, my grandmother was the most "Jewish" among us (according to the definition given by the rabbi in his funeral speech, anyway).

One of the worst books ever!
The setting was not well developed.
The characters were confusing.
The plot was non existent or at least very well hidden.
So what was the point of writing this book from the readers' perspective? I know he wrote it to make money. Maybe to help get over his divorce too.

It went downhill from page 1. This is the second to worst piece of crap that I tried to read. And gave up on. It is not even 'fine literature' nor pretentious enough to be called literature.

read the whole review here
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...