Advance Review of FAMILY BLOG #10

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The Clary Antome I know has nothing to do with this purported author of ‘Family Blog’, which I have only partially read. I didn’t get any of the jokes – and the characters were so strange! They are obviously a figment of the author’s imagination, nobody in her family even remotely resembles those people in the novel. In fact, I didn’t think that the family was very realistically portrayed.
Clary was such a nice girl when she was little, always obedient and attentive. Never a mean thought. I don’t know what went wrong. We did our best to raise her into a fine young lady. I honestly think that she was influenced by the vicious ideas in all those books she’s always reading. We should have made her watch more TV.

(Matilda Antome, mother of the purported author,
Useless Gossip-Radio PPP, Rio de Janeiro)

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Advance Review of FAMILY BLOG #4

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"Spiritually this novel is a failure. The characters at times appear so hopeless, it made me wince. Their blogs invariably revolve around a handful of leitmotivs, such as watching TV, eating, shopping, consuming drugs. Furthermore, I got the impression that the author is not at all able to distinguish between these superficialities and the more noble acts she mentions, such as finding love, raising children, engaging in meaningful work, fighting for freedom and democracy. Whatever the characters do seems to be just another failed attempt to avoid boredom. I presume that most readers will be disgusted by this farce. Fortunately."

(Sabine Hoffer, Rosa Brille: Magazin für seelische Gesundheit, Berlin)

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