The View from Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik

Landvik usually mixes humor and tragedy in a very unique manner and this book is no exception. It's interesting that she chose a male protagonist, though. That's different from her other books. Joe Andreson is a typical teenager in the 1970s - and his hormones dominate the first part of the book pretty heavily. My favorite parts were the ones with Darva and Flora and when Joe finally puts Kristi in her place. I love the way Joe was willing to look at situations and people and make loving decisions, as with his aunt Beth. Overall, a very enjoyable story.

Above is from 1/26/2008.

by Lorna Landvik
Hennepin County Library audiobook 10 discs
read by Robertson Dean
genre: realistic fiction

I got the audiobook again because I love Landvik. I listened to at least two discs before I *knew* I had read it before. Notes:

Describing grandma (Carol's, Roger's and Beth's mom) as a woman "pickled in a brine of hurt and bitterness" . . . wow. So evocative of her unhappiness.

I strongly dislike the Kristi-as-evangelist (and total fake) and her relationship with Buck Drake. But I love Joe's story and his relationships. This is not my favorite Landvik book, but I do enjoy her storytelling style. I've also heard her do stand-up comedy. This woman has mad skills!

Oh! I also had to capture this quote (from disc 8, track 12):
"I had heard from enough parents at PTA meetings and along the sidelines at soccer games how their sweet and easygoing daughters had suddenly turned into - as one mother put it - teenzillas. It was as if fourteen was a foreign country with evil powers, changing those who entered into snotty, sullen girls who if they deigned to speak to you at all would just as soon lie as tell the truth."

Another scrap of paper I just found said, "end of chapter 12 / part 1" - Mount Joy is looking at the Northern Lights by the North Shore of Lake Superior. I love seeing where the title of a book comes from! But the Mount Joy references become a part of her fake evangelism, and I like that aspect of the story a lot less. Kristi is an unpleasant character throughout the story, but Joe's relationship to her changes (yet in some ways, stays the same) throughout the book. He grows and changes; she does not.