3.5 stars. Very funny, very engrossing, very meta. Maybe a little bit underdeveloped? Or maybe I will have to re-read to get it all.

The best part of this novel is the author's wit. Fowler, as many reviewers note, really does have a wonderful voice. Her character insights, asides, ruminations--all are engaging and interesting. The whole of Wit's End, however, is not as good as the sum of its parts. With so many odd and fascinating side stories: grief, loss, obsessive fan adoration, theft of artistic ownership, cults, mystery novels, mysterious letters, mysteries within mysteries... not to mention complicated and fascinating c...

I barely know what happened in this book. It's haphazard and directionless. I was unsure of what mystery we were trying to solve, and the resolution didn't clear it up. There were baffling extraneous stories and details that made me wonder if this book ever made it into the hands of an editor. Disappointing because I really enjoyed her novel "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves".

I liked this book but either it thought it was more deep than it was or I am an idiot. equally likely scenarios if I’m honest.

After Rima Lanisell's father dies, she goes to stay with her godmother, Addison Early. Addison is a hugely successful crime fiction writer and was a close friend of Rima's father. However, she is very private and Rima struggles to understand the history of Addison and her father while she figures out her place and purpose in the world. Fowler's books are fun and the characters are quirky. This was an easy and engaging read.

Now this is a really fun book for the modern, Net-savvy reader. I don't think I've ever heard fanfiction discussed more accurately in a book before (or ever discussed period!), and I love the varying attitudes on it from the author to the rabid fangirl to the innocent net surfer who accidentally stumbles onto a slashy one--SO much fun!I read in a professional review somewhere that this book feels "up to the minute fresh," and that is really an excellent way to put it. Blogging, forums, Dubbya's

I bought this book in the UK; I prefer the US title, "Wit's End," as it is a more accurate indication of the book's themes and content.The UK jacket copy made the book sound like a lighthearted romp with a fictional detective come to life to help the heroine. Instead, the book is a rumination on grief, the creative process, and just who "owns" a creative work once it is accessible by the public. Does it belong to the author? To the fan? To the real life people & events on whom the fictional char...

I really liked it... yet there is no discernible reason that I did. There is no concrete aspect that I loved. I didn't love the characters, I didn't love the beginning, middle and end of the story (oh, because there wasn't one!) But I loved it as a whole all the same.It was very... current. In a way that I've never experienced in a novel. There were constant cultural references that were very now... polar bears on LOST for example, crazy fan-fic and website forums of fans. I never understood the...

First of all, this was the paperback edition, which is important because the protagonist's name is different in this edition. And this is her correct name. (Be careful when you sell naming rights.)Your mind needs to be relaxed and receptive while reading this book because the narration shifts back and forth in time as well as in the matter of factual happenings. There is also the matter of fictional vs real people. Rima Lansill has had both her parents and her beloved brother Oliver die, all at

4.5 starsI think, unfortunately, that this book is misreprented by the tag line on the cover and the publisher description; both those seem to promise an overarching mystery, a sinister encroachment of the both the past and of an author's fans.What it actually is - and succeeds quite well at - is the first person narrative of a woman without roots trying to find some purpose. Rima struggles with grief, tries to figure out the puzzle of her father's life, tries both to connect and to avoid connec...

Preface: I won this through a Readinggroupguides.com contest. I have read The Jane Austen Book Club, which was also set in the Norcal area, so I'm right at home with that.Update: Just because you get a book for free does not mean you should read it. There was no point or direction to this book. The storyline was very scattered, none of the characters were developed enough to like or emphathize with them, and it was peppered with unnecessary profanity and moral issues that came from left field. T...

The author of The Jane Austen Book Club has struck again--delightfully. This book is not a mystery but it IS about a mystery writer, her goddaughter, and some mysterious past events. There are multiple story lines in this book,including highly imaginative plots for the books written by Addison (though, despite attempts throughout the book by many, not a clue about what the new book is about until the very, very, very end). It's a tad confusing at timessince Addison has a tendency to use "real" p...

I like meta-books, books about books and writers and readers and how stories influence our lives. As someone who spends what, I admit, is probably an inordinate amount of time reading, reading about books is important and informative. Wit’s End is metafiction about mystery. Rima’s godmother, Addison Early, is a successful Agatha Christie—like mystery writer. Rima comes to stay with Addison at Wit’s End, Addison’s little refuge from the world in Santa Cruz. Cut off from the rest of the world by t...

People really seem to hate this one. I'm feeling daring, adding this to my TBR shelf. Good luck, future me.

I rated this a 5 as a reaction to all the low ratings, I think It's witty, fey and clever with two dachshunds -- Berkeley and Stanford -- that almost had me laughing out loud.I think the low ratings came from people who were expecting a standard cookie-cutter whodunit instead of charm. I'd heard of Holy City near Santa Cruz before -- when we lived in California -- and had spent time along the coast so appreciate descriptions of fog and the seaside.Our heroine, Rima, is thrice bereaved and visits...

What the heck is this book about? It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's description of his sitcom. This is a book about nothing. When you are finished with this book, you don't know any more about the characters that you did before you started it. I read this book on a bus trip to Milwaukee. If I had not been trapped on the bus with it, I would have quit half-way through. I would not recommed this book to anyone.I have not read Fowler's "The Jane Austen Book Club" and am not likely to after reading

Reading this book made me wonder why Jonathan Lethem, Junot Diaz and the other fan boys get all the credit for playing with genre. Karen Joy Fowler's meta-mystery, about a woman trying to decipher the relationships between her family and a famous murder mystery writer, has just as many layers and asks just as many big philosophical questions. Set in a Santa Cruz populated by cults and clowns and 12-stepper housekeepers, the book is as colorful as any traditional mystery. By adding plot lines tha...

I'm giving this one three stars, although 2 1/2 would be more accurate. Though Fowler is tremendously good at setting and details, as well as introducing quirky characters, that didn't make up for the "plot", such that there is.We start with the protagonist, Rima Lanisell, arriving at the Santa Cruz, CA home of her godmother Addison Early, famous (think: Stephen King famous) author of a serious of mystery/thrillers featuring the character Maxwell Lane, and antagonist Bim Lanisell (Bin Laden?), s...

Too much Wikipedia, not enough story. I thought that all of the "themes" were a great set-up: the dollhouses, the Maxwell Lane stories, etc. "Ice City" the mental place with an imagined geography, inside a fictional world, was the best thing I got out of it. But Ice City was a very small part. Did I miss something bigger because I listened to it? Also, I just have something against people spending too much time on their computers in novels (unless its SF). I asked myself about this, and telephon...

What a letdown! The description sounded so interesting - A young woman, Rima, who is suffering after the deaths, one after another, of her immediate family members, is invited to move in with her godmother who happens to be a world famous mystery writer. The writer lives in a beachfront estate in Santa Cruz, California, called "Wit's End" which was built years ago by a surviving member of the Donner party who is said to haunt the grounds. The writer is a little eccentric - she builds dioramas of...