Afbeelding van de auteur.

Emily Gray Tedrowe

Auteur van The Talented Miss Farwell

4 Werken 457 Leden 50 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Bevat de naam: Emily Gray Tedrowe

Fotografie: Photo by Audrey Keller Photography, from author's website

Werken van Emily Gray Tedrowe

The Talented Miss Farwell (2020) 242 exemplaren
Commuters (2010) 159 exemplaren
Blue Stars (1705) 55 exemplaren

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Algemene kennis

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Fairly written, reminded me too much o “Bad Education” on HBO and the documentary “All the Queens Horses” both which were produced first
 
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schoenbc70 | 35 andere besprekingen | Sep 2, 2023 |
I picked this up on a recommendation, not something I'd typically pick up. This is an interesting character study, but it is so difficult to get along with because Miss Farwell is someone you think maybe you should root for at the start? but then she is so clearly a villain by the end. I was under the impression when I started reading that she was trying to turn a profit for her small town through a secret art scheme, but she was bleeding the town dry and giving back little bits of pocket change here and there to make herself feel better. The schools needed textbooks, the pool was dry for years, the playgrounds were broken, did she really not care at all about the people she lived near and worked with? An unlikeable character study on someone who isn't clearly the bad guy from the start just didn't quite work, but it was still an entertaining story based on a real life scam of the same flavor.… (meer)
 
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KallieGrace | 35 andere besprekingen | Jun 8, 2023 |
The talented Miss Becky, Farwell, that is. Ambitious, with a natural penchant for numbers and calculations, blindsided by a hopeless obsession for high art. Small town girl with such cerebral tastes. It almost doesn’t seem fair. But the Talented Miss Farwell is a classic example of how our obsessions choose us, not the other way around. Once in an obsession’s grip, “just one more” is never enough, whether one knows it or not. And that is typically one’s undoing.
I knew within 2 pages this would be a great book with a well-drawn character I liked. Becky is a smart and serious kid, just her and her dad against the world, doing whatever it takes to save the farm and the equipment store in 1980s Midwest. Anyone who’s lived through the 80s remembers the recession, the end of America’s supremacy in the automobile industry, and the start of so many jobs being sent south of the border and overseas. Things were indeed grim. Becky’s mom died of breast cancer when Becky was 6, and Becky knew her dad was in decline; she took on the responsibility of handling the books and making equipment sales with dad’s permission. The girl was a natural with numbers and he knew it. She had a hustle doing math homework for 4 girl students. But between hard times and family loyalty, there was no way Becky was going to college, even if she did have a strong mentor in her corner, a math teacher who knew Becky was special and saw some of her own self in the girl. Becky could go to college later, she told herself. Her dad and the farm needed her now. So Pierson was where she stayed. Soon enough, Becky was working for the small rural town in finance. This is where the trouble started.
It takes a special kind of person to lead a double life and Becky led her seamlessly, working as Pierson’s youngest ever comptroller during the week and jetting off to Chicago and New York over the weekend to be a part of the high-end art scene. A complete novice, Becky didn’t know anything about art beyond an innate sense of what a good art piece was. She put herself in art spaces and learned how to buy and sell, smart, ambitious, and disinterested in the games art people play, she remained focused on the art and didn’t get sucked into the usual distractions: vicious gossip, sex, drugs.
The years went by and Becky (Reba to her art world associates) got quite good at what she called her Activity: falsifying invoices and using the money to purchase art and pay for her expensive other lifestyle. Poor Becky. She loved Pierson, her hometown. She always managed to find the extra funds the town needed to provide a good lifestyle and infrastructure. Until she doesn’t. Until she gets ahead of herself, and things spiral out of manageability.
To me, once I got halfway into this novel, the hook was how long she could keep it going and whether/how it would end. It was exciting and dreadful. I delayed finishing the book for several days because I didn’t want to look! Crazy, I know. I was pulling for Becky. I wanted her to succeed, not because I have anything against the art scene (I don’t) but because she really did care about her town and her family. If she’d been born into a different class, she could’ve been a legitimate high-end art dealer. But just as we can’t choose our obsessions, we can’t choose what class we’re born into. I pulled for the “hometown girl makes good” even though I knew she was doing wrong. Because if she could just get that one last print to complete the series, she could make back all the money it would take to return Pierson to solvency. Just one more…
… (meer)
 
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WordMaven | 35 andere besprekingen | Jun 7, 2023 |
I can think of two reasons someone would want to write this book, which is based on a real person and real events.

1. The author is interested in exploring how someone could choose to perpetrate a years-long embezzlement scheme against a municipality while watching the town deteriorate and its citizens do without. Certainly a lot could be made of this by a talented author with a true interest in the question.

2. The author is anxious to capitalize on a recently revealed scandal before any other books, fiction or non-fiction, were published about it.

Unfortunately I think the latter is the case. Tedrowe's writing is pedestrian, the characters are not well developed, and at times it read more like a screenplay than a book. (See #2 above.)

Regardless of all that, I did enjoy the discussion in the group read for the book. I just can't give it much of a recommendation.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
BarbKBooks | 35 andere besprekingen | Aug 15, 2022 |

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Statistieken

Werken
4
Leden
457
Populariteit
#53,730
Waardering
½ 3.5
Besprekingen
50
ISBNs
21

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