Audiobook9 hours
Off Course
Written by Michelle Huneven
Narrated by Amy Rubinate
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
The year is 1981, Reagan is in the White House, and the country is stalled in a recession. Cressida Hartley, a gifted Ph.D. student in economics, moves into her parents' shabby A-frame cabin in the Sierras to write her dissertation.
Cress, increasingly resistant to her topic (art in the marketplace), allows herself to be drawn into the social life of the small mountain community. The exuberant local lodge owner, Jakey Yates, with his big personality and great animal magnetism, is the first to blur Cress' focus. The builder Rick Garsh gives her a job driving up and down the mountain for supplies. And then there are the two Morrow brothers, skilled carpenters, who are witty, intriguing, and married.
As Cress tells her best friend back home in Pasadena, being a single woman on the mountain amounts to a form of public service. Falling prey to her own perilous reasoning, she soon finds herself in dark new territory, subject to forces beyond her control from both within and without.
Cress, increasingly resistant to her topic (art in the marketplace), allows herself to be drawn into the social life of the small mountain community. The exuberant local lodge owner, Jakey Yates, with his big personality and great animal magnetism, is the first to blur Cress' focus. The builder Rick Garsh gives her a job driving up and down the mountain for supplies. And then there are the two Morrow brothers, skilled carpenters, who are witty, intriguing, and married.
As Cress tells her best friend back home in Pasadena, being a single woman on the mountain amounts to a form of public service. Falling prey to her own perilous reasoning, she soon finds herself in dark new territory, subject to forces beyond her control from both within and without.
Author
Michelle Huneven
Michelle Huneven is the author of the novels Blame, Round Rock and Jamesland. She has received a General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers and a Whiting Writers’ Award for fiction. She lives in Altadena, California.
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Reviews for Off Course
Rating: 3.4125 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
40 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Couldn't finish this one. The main character was incredibly annoying and went against all of my feminist sensibilities.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book was beautifully written and paced. My assessment of Cress' emotional life evolved throughout, but the journey was a fascinating one. She is not always likeable, but who among is is always likeable? I will say that even in the swaths of this where Cress is selfish and lazy and behaving more like a 17 year old than a 27 year old she is interesting. She constantly put her energy into bad and morally questionable choices and into avoiding maturity and progress and kept falling assbackward into academic success, good jobs and bonded relationships. A compelling if not entirely satisfying read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Read it in one sitting, which is saying something for this ADD-challenged reader these days.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rather a disappointment. I saw the book in a recommended list somewhere and the striking front picture made me order it. The book does not offer the same kind of surprising content and the main character is rather annoying at times. The writing style did not appeal either and I did not find it remarkable. Here are the only few quotes:Pg 4 Scenery, she thought, was wasted on children, ...Pg 40 Her powers felt thin in that high air.Pg 49 Rocks were hard [to draw]; the more she looked at them, the more specific and abstract they became.Pg 138 ...his familiar, lived in body.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Half-way through this book I was more than ready for it to be over. I had no patience for the protagonist. Would there be a terrible tragedy? Nope. Too bad. This book could've used one. I guess a heroine who learns nothing about herself is...is...well, nothing special.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Peyton Place in the Sierras.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book started off with an interesting premise: a young woman, staying at her parent's cabin in the woods, working on her dissertation. She meets some of the quirky locals, including the resident lothario. After about 100 pages, the story wears thin and becomes tedious: lengthy descriptions and no forward movement. I abandoned the book after 160 pages, the end of Part I, because a quick skim of the second part looked like a lot more of the same. Too bad; it showed such promise in the beginning.