How Clarissa Burden Learned To Fly (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I am in love with this book! If you have ever had any self-doubts about anything and you like ghosts, writers, fallen angels, and daydreams about killing your husband (yes I did write that!) you'll love this book too. I finished this book some time ago and still in love with it, so I read a couple more but neither was as good as this one. Quirky writer and I think with time will produce more great books like How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. I should never read a novel that is described as "empowering." And I know better than to read chick lit. But I honestly thought this book sounded like it would defy the conventions of that cliched genre - set in North Florida, quirky Cracker characters, ghosts with a story to tell, dysfunctional family life, even a dwarf circus. Sadly, no. All those aspects that drew me to this book, and which were highlighted on the misleading jacket description, turned out to be a very small part of the narrative. Another book wherein an author teases the reader with a small taste of something interesting and different, only to abandon it in favor of obvious and hackneyed cliches: beautiful but damaged steel magnolia has an epiphany on a hot summer day (which is redundant, in Florida), decides to kick her no-good husband to the curb, but only after being flirted with by every man she talks to that day and getting all dolled up for a meeting with much younger hottie who calls her "baby" constantly. Just because the main character collects Zora Neale Hurston doesn't mean the author, or her creations, bear any resemblence to Hurston's beyond being set in the same state. Such a dissapointment, fortunately I was able to skim most of this and only lost a day reading it.
What do You think about How Clarissa Burden Learned To Fly (2010)?
I felt that the "spirits" in the book were unnecessary to the story.
—jrlmccall
So much to discuss about this book in book club. It was great.
—Aimee
This book got me through a tough time in my life.
—bara28
