Mountaineerdave reviewed The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
The Hour I wanted to believe, but returned to my dismaying disbelief
3 stars
The gut-wrenching first part of this book delighted me with absolute terror and anguish. I detested every bit of awfulness it depicted in the first part, but I couldn't stop reading, it was so well done. Then it became a miserable mishmash of personal history lesson that was, simply, of no emotional weight for me, and watching an unhappy person grow ever-unhappier, till, suddenly, he sees himself in the mirror? I mean, what? It's all very strangely poorly done, at the end. As if he'd grown tired, and why wouldn't he: the second part was so dull and drab and disconnected from everything and anything from the first part, it's worth questioning whether this ought to have been a single novel. The author's weaving did not cover the spots or darn the holes in the least. Three stars because Part 1 was 5 stars, and Part 2 was 1 star. …
The gut-wrenching first part of this book delighted me with absolute terror and anguish. I detested every bit of awfulness it depicted in the first part, but I couldn't stop reading, it was so well done. Then it became a miserable mishmash of personal history lesson that was, simply, of no emotional weight for me, and watching an unhappy person grow ever-unhappier, till, suddenly, he sees himself in the mirror? I mean, what? It's all very strangely poorly done, at the end. As if he'd grown tired, and why wouldn't he: the second part was so dull and drab and disconnected from everything and anything from the first part, it's worth questioning whether this ought to have been a single novel. The author's weaving did not cover the spots or darn the holes in the least. Three stars because Part 1 was 5 stars, and Part 2 was 1 star. (Really, I thought several times I'd just not finish the damn thing, I hated Part 2 so much. But I powered through it.)
