I'm one of the ones who really didn't like this book.

Yep, this book was a strange experience for me. Because: Throughout the book there were passages that I thought were brilliantly written. But somehow I didn't really enjoy reading the book. I actually started it several times and then finally just decided to force myself to read the whole thing because it's so damn critically acclaimed. And I pretty much had to force myself to finish it.

Yet there are terrific passages throughout it.

I don't get why I didn't like it.

I'll tell why I didn't like it. Tassie, the main character, wasn't really believable as a young adult. Because she's telling us the story from some presumable but undefined future, we know that some of her insights are coming from herself as an older woman. Also, some of the plot points (spoiler! stop reading right now if you don't want to know more) were completely implausible, including but not limited to the adoption of the baby with no background check, ignoring her brother's email even when he practically begged her to read it, being carried in the coffin with the body unnoticed, running around in a bird costume as a means of catharsis for an entire summer, and the terrorist boyfriend tangent. Tassie had no real connections with any other character; she seems to float through the book making strange asides. I agree that some of the writing is good, but the novel's structure troubled me throughout. She captured time and place, but her characters were sometimes so superficial as to exist as ghosts within the text. Glad I read it so I can be part of the discussion, but baffled by its acclaim.

I remember when Moore was acclaimed as a short story writer, but haven't read her longer fiction. Your number four cracks me up--when people ask me my real hair color, it tell them "Dirt."

I think that undertow nailed a large part of it, now that I think about it. All of those things definitely strained belief.

Though that's not the whole reason...because even before those non-believable things happened, I still was not enjoying the book. Throughout the whole reading experience I always felt as if reading it were homework: Like, sigh, tonight I guess I'll try to get 50 pages done.

I will probably try some of her short stories; I'm not ready to give up on her yet and I've heard that her short fiction is amazing.

The voice might be what appeals to people. I didn't enjoy the events of "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", but I loved the narrators.