What readers think of The Brooklyn Follies, plus links to write your own review.

Reading this novel was not a satisfying experience for me. To my ear, the story never rang true. Nevertheless, I found it interesting and entertaining enough for the first 3/4 of the book. After that, for me, the author’s style became too didactic to tolerate. Although the political views expressed by the characters in the novel are precisely the same as my own, I had the impression that the author was simply wallowing in the pleasure of expressing his personal viewpoint through the dialog. The overbearing nature of the main character and narrator began to spill over to the voices of the other characters, who seemed to speak with the same, eventually irritating voice. The differences between the characters seemed contrived. Maybe I'm just too provincial, but if there is a deep end to this pool, I never found it, and the wading wasn’t entertaining enough to be worth the minimal effort. As for the professional reviews, in my opinion only the Kirkus reviewer got it right.