Puss Reboots: Blog: October 2007: Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

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Reviews:
Against the Current by Robert Silverberg
Alice, the Cat Who Was Hounded by Jules Rosenthal
And Then What Happened Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz
Arizona by Clarence Budingham Kelland
Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
Barren Lives by Gracilliano Ramos
Better Not Get Wet, Jesse Bear by Nancy White Carlstrom
Bleach Volume 2 by Tite Kubo
Bleach Volume 3 by Tite Kubo
The Boy Who Wanted to be a Fish by Le Grand
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
The Ebb-Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Eight by Katherine Neville Gag by Lovechild
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
Hide and Ghost Seek by Carol Thompson
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
How to Deal with Difficult People by Andrew Costello
I Went to the Animal Fair by William Cole and Colette Rosselli The Key by Joe Vitale
The Long Valley by John Steinbeck
Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H. F. Saint
Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession by Erma Bombeck
Mousekin's Family by Edna Miller
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
My Summer with George by Marilyn French
Sail Away by Donald Crews
Sailaway Home by Bruce Degen
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Shooting Polaris by John Hales
Small Pig by Arnold Lobel
The Storm by Sarah Zimmerman
Strange Mr. Satie by M. T. Anderson and Petra Mathers
Turtle's Flying Lesson by Diane Redfield Massie
The Unfinished Revolution by Michael Dertouzos
The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs
Who Goes There? by Dorothy P. Lathrop

Previous month

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven: 10/29/07

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven is the current popular book in the Tri-Valley BookCrossing group. I had my chance to read it this past month and while I enjoyed it I didn't find it as strong or compelling a story as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven is a fluffy fantasy that presents the afterlife much in the way that it was done in the Oh God! movies. I was almost picturing Ray (God) and Dorothy (Goddess) as George Burns and Gracie Allen (yes I know, she wasn't in the film but there is a Gracie-ness to Dorothy).

The book had my attention for the first half where Elner Shimfissle (a minor character in previous Flagg books I haven't read) has died and her friends and family must come to terms with her death while meanwhile, Elner is up in Heaven examining her life and death. These initial chapters were an interesting balance of pathos and humor.

Then the book changes direction and becomes a cheesy remake of It's a Wonderful Life and I started to lose interest. The entire tone of the novel changed and I felt like I was reading a Carl Hiaasen novel instead of a Fannie Flagg one. This change was jarring and the punchline ending fell flat for me.

So while I didn't love the novel, I didn't hate it either. I just thought it could have been better.