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The Coast Of Akron
A Novel
by Adrienne Miller
The first novel from Miller (Esquire's literary editor) is a humorous look at a dysfunctional family in Akron, Ohio.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 400 pages
05/04/2005
$25.00
ISBN: 0374125120
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Adam Langer
Imaginative, refreshingly eccentric and, at times, strangely moving, this is truly a book whose characters stay with you long after you have put them back on the shelf. [1 May 2005, p.C3]
Los Angeles Times James Marcus
It's campy, complicated and almost unnervingly professional, as though Adrienne Miller had been knocking out this stuff for years. [1 May 2005, p.R10]
Salon Rebecca Traister
Sometimes Miller oversteps, and despite her efforts to truss up her characters with precise and evocative sentences, she allows them to slip and ooze all over the place.... This is forgivable, though, because buried beneath the spun-sugar absurdity of "The Coast of Akron" is a terrifically compelling and original tale about art, gender, ownership and identity.
Washington Post Curtis Sittenfeld
The Coast of Akron is an imperfect book, but Miller's enormous talent is evident on every page.
The New York Times Book Review Elissa Schappell
Oddly enough, it isn't the zany plot that provides the most excitement. Instead, the pyrotechnics come from Miller's enormous wit and linguistic creativity.
The Independent John Freeman
As a farce, the book could not be more bizarre, or more dead-on-target.
The New Yorker
Eventually chokes to death on its own whimsy.
Boston Globe Daniel Akst
The real problem with ''The Coast of Akron" is the last 50 pages or so, in which this seemingly healthy, vigorous narrative undergoes some kind of tragic cardiac arrhythmia and simply falls apart.
San Francisco Chronicle Jennie Yabroff
One fears that all the tinsel and feathers in the book may be an attempt to camouflage a lack of confidence in the worthiness of her story.
Village Voice Amy Farley
She's more concerned with tracing her characters' mental dissolution than with constructing a compelling plot, and the novel's conclusion is deeply unsatisfying.
Wall Street Journal Stephen Barbara
Though Ms. Miller follows her best instincts in writing the poignant story of Merit Haven, she sorely tries the reader's patience by devoting so much of the book to the affected and unlikable pair of Lowell and Fergus.
New York Observer David Thomson
The trouble is that Ms. Miller can write: She has a voice, as well as a fine comic sense of madness and an air of danger that suggests this novel is always about to burst out into the open fields... [but she] doesn't really do plot very well, or character, let alone the kind of underlying gravitational pull (call it moral imperative, or sustained interest) that keeps you reading. [2 May 2005, p.23]
Publishers Weekly
The trouble is that the scenes don't hang together. [7 Mar 2005, p.47]
Kirkus Reviews
It's all funny for a while, but eventually the reader feels as if trapped at an endless cocktail party. [1 Mar 2005, p.253]
Library Journal Starr E. Smith
There is promising satirical material here, but episodic pacing and two-dimensional, stereotypical characterizations undermine its promise. [1 Apr 2005, p.87]
 The average user rating for this book is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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