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There are currently 23 member reviews
for South of Broad
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Brooke (CA)
Hoping for Better
I have been a fan of Pat Conroy’s writing since 1987, when I read the The Prince of Tides. I appreciated the beauty of the images and depth of the truths his words and sentences evoked in me. Since then, I have read all of his books. I noticed a shift in his writing in his last novel, Beach Music. I felt he was caving in to the pressures of popular fiction by adding superfluous intrigue into the story. Sadly, for me, South of Broad is more of the same. The novel is overwritten and has a contrived and predictable plot. I found a few beautifully crafted sentences, but not enough to recommend the book.
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Jane (Plantation, FL)
Disappointing
I was really looking forward to reading this book. I loved The Great Santini, Lords of Discipline and Prince of Tides is my all-time favorite book. But South of Broad was very disappointing. In parts the writing is beautiful - classic Pat Conroy, but the dialogue particularly is awful and the rest is just ordinary.
The plot is cliched and predictable, except for the ending, which did take me by surprise, but it wasn't worth slogging through the trite plot. The misfit, unpopular boy somehow in the summer before his senior year in high school make friends with a racially and socially disparate group of friends and ends up being the social conscience of the class. .... The group of friends has a gay guy, three orphans, two blacks, three socially elite kids and the leader of the group, the misfit Leo, and practically overnight in 1969 in the South, they all manage to form friendships that last a lifetime. It's a plot Danielle Steele would be proud of.
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