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2+ Werken 70 Leden 5 Besprekingen

Werken van Matthew Batt

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male

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3.5 stars

Matthew Batt and his wife Jenae are in Salt Lake City and looking to buy a home. Unfortunately, they can’t afford what they really want, so they end up with a (huge!) fixer-upper. It is only after they are renovating they find out that the house used to be a crackhouse. Oh, and they aren’t particularly handy people, but do the bulk of the work themselves.

Interspersed with their house dilemmas, Matt’s grandmother passes away, so Matt and his mom have to help out Matt’s grandfather, a playboy who really just wants to be with Tonya, the home care nurse who took care of his wife when she was alive.

It maybe doesn’t sound like the more interesting part of the story, but I liked the renovating of the house portions of the story better. I’m actually not quite sure how the two stories fit together, except I suppose that the things that happened with Matt’s family really were happening at the time. There were plenty of humourous bits, maybe more humourous because super-non-handy me could relate. I’m sure they managed to do a heck of a lot more than I ever could have, even with help from friends! Overall, I liked it.
… (meer)
½
 
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LibraryCin | 4 andere besprekingen | Jan 22, 2023 |
Matt and his wife Jenae buy a house. It is a fixer upper of the first order. Everything needs work, from the octopus furnace to the popcorn ceilings to the 7 layers of linoleum. Neither Matt nor Jenae have experience with homeownership, so they read all the books and rely on the experts - Glendon from Home Depot, Jenae's Grandpa George and their friends Erik and Michael. This book was serious, and funny and has a lot of heart. I loved the descriptions of the work that needed to get done and the way these two enthusiastic yet untrained DIYers tackled making this crack house into a home.

October 2012
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mlake | 4 andere besprekingen | Apr 28, 2015 |
A possibly intriguing and amusing story does not live up to its potential. There is no community backstory, no great change. It is the story about a house and that is all. Perhaps that would be a fine enough story if only the title were different--"turning the neighborhood crack house into our home sweet home" seems to promise a deeper story that is no delivered.
 
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MartyAllen | 4 andere besprekingen | Jun 30, 2012 |
I picked up this book because of the promise of a story about rehabbing a house and a relationship one project at a time. Unfortunately, the book just isn't really that focused on house projects which was disappointing for me. There is a lot of backstory, and a lot of details about Matt's dysfunctional family, which though interesting, didn't seem to relate at all to the story I thought I would be reading. Most of the house projects are glossed right over (apart from Matt's attempts to self-justify at Home Depot) which I found disappointing.

The book is funny but the narrative uneven, and ultimately this isn't a story about a house which is why I wanted to read it. It also isn't a story about a relationship because there is a lot more here about Matt's grandfather than his wife. The book was a quick read but ultimately unsatisfying read.
… (meer)
 
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ForeignCircus | 4 andere besprekingen | Jun 15, 2012 |

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Werken
2
Ook door
1
Leden
70
Populariteit
#248,179
Waardering
2.8
Besprekingen
5
ISBNs
4

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