Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Summerland

Michael Chabon's Summerland is a tough book to get into. It's starts off slow for an adventure story, but eventually picks up the pace.

Chabon's story centered around the lovable game, baseball. Creating an interestingly intertwined mythology, Chabon builds a world based on the ballgame many consider the American pastime. But sadly, Chabon just didn't hit the ball out the park.

Summerland struck out. It had some good hits at times during the game, but at the end, Summerland missed every ball that makes a great book.

The errors in Summerland's game can be chalked up mostly to Mr. Chabon. He wrote himself a team of characters who either swung too early in the characterization department, or just weren't relatable. The best character was the villain of the piece, a Mr. Coyote. I found myself routing for him to win and dissolve the Tree of Worlds. But alas, Mr. Chabon was quick to reveal that our "heroes" (his word, not mine) succeeded as he constantly commented about how the baseball games the main cast played were recorded in the history books.

Chabon's book makes for a good young adult or children's novel, but in the grand scheme of things, it just isn't worth taking off the bench.

I hate to do this, but this book goes in the bin.

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