This book was a downer with no relief. The characters were not likable and never were able to get themselves out of any of the holes they were in. A stark, pessimistic view of life with no silver lining. Not a beach read. More like a book to get you in the mood to cut yourself.

The Hole We’re In could more accurately be titled People Making Bad Decisions. And, indeed, for the first half of the novel, it’s queasily compelling to read about Gabrielle Zevin’s “typical Middle American family” as they lie to each other and rack up a crushing amount of debt.However, Hole begins to unravel around the halfway mark. Story threads are introduced and never developed. (In some cases, story conclusions are deliberately obfuscated and I think Zevin thinks she’s being literary when s...

I had a hard time reading this book because I hated all the characters, in particular the parents. It was very bizarre how no one spoke to each other about anything of importance, just hid everything and it seemed like the parents had zero emotional connections to their own children. I did like the last chapter, I hope that turns out not to be our future!

Great book. I enjoyed it a lot. I am a huge Zevin fan -- I adore ELSEWHERE, and I'd rank it up with my favourite Young Adult novels. MEMOIRS OF A TEENAGE AMNESIAC was a blip in my opinion, but, God, Zevin has such raw talent for both writing and crafting a story that I just block that out.Good stuff? The characters were extremely compelling. Roger was one of the most unsympathetic assholes ever to get into print (outside of psychopaths/serial killers), but he was incredibly human and fascinating...

This is a book about a family that disintegrates, not because of the members' hedonism, but from their idealism. (Intolerance and bigotry are ideals to those who practice them.) Money and respectability are the main concerns of the parents, and every character must come to terms with these needs. People make choices, and oftentimes are disappointed in themselves afterwards -- but are still stuck with the consequences of those choices. Most of the book takes place in there here-and-now, but the l...

I must respectfully disagree with the above synopsis by Good Reads as must have obviously been written by the publisher. The only point I would agree with is the “flawed and at times infuriating” although I would say ALWAYS infuriating. There is nothing at all to like about the parents in this family nor do I consider them “relatable”. What I would say is that if you are looking for the “poster” parents for some of the world's worst parents, here is your couple. The husband is a narcissistic idi...

I think Gabrielle is a great writer and there was a great story in this book populated with compelling characters; I just wish it wasn’t buried underneath the multitude of curse words on the pages. This book was enthralling but a real downer of a story. It is about the Pomeroy family, Roger, the father and a fanatical seventh day adventist, George his long-suffering wife, Victor, the outcast son because he went to Yale and not a religious college, Helen, a daughter with mountains of credit card

Impossible to put down. Fantastically well-done look at the varied holes we climb in, climb out of, dig for ourselves, and find ourselves in. This searing family-disfunction/credit-based-society-critique/study of religious fundamentalism left the earth pretty scorched, but breathing, bleeding believable characters kept me turning pages as fast as I could read. Roger, trying to finish his PhD, leaves his wife Georgia to take care of family finances while he focuses on his dissertation- which he h...

I loved this novel that follows the dysfunctional Pomeroy family, lead by a bland and flawed fundamentalist Christian patriarch, and rounded out by the incredibly well drawn and unique characters of his wife and children. The author uses the motif of holes- physical, financial, emotional-- throughout the book with mastery and without too heavy a hand to illustrate the mundane with such color that it becomes utterly absorbing. I had a difficult time putting this one down once I started reading. G...

Better than average drama focussing on issues of today and how they impact one family. Difference between this and most books of this type, at least for me, is that the family is fundamental Christian, employing the restrictions imposed by the church. But this does not take away the outside influences affecting everyone these days. The father's decision to complete his education at the age of 42 forces the entire family to uproot from Tennessee to Texas, plunging them deeper and deeper into debt...

This is very readable. It follows a mostly unpleasant family, ultimately focusing on one daughter who we see over about 20 years. I enjoyed many parts of the story and some of the characters. There was one weird thing though. Right near the end of the book, a character's 15 year old daughter is getting an abortion, her mom arranges it and goes with her. This takes place in the Eastern US in modern times (the mom served time in Iraq). The book is not an alternative history or anything, it's quite...

It took me ages, since release (I pre-ordered it)till now to read this. And so it seems the world ends today May 21st, 2011 (later in the day I guess, and maybe it is a time zone thing). Good timing to be reading a book about fundamentalist Adventist Christians. Solipsism FTW.The reason it took me those ages to read this might be because frankly, the blurb and reviews make it sound like a downer. I need to be in the right mood to want to tackle potentially devastating novels, AND often novels ab...

1. Gabs totally foresaw Trump America and the illegalisation of abortion in the USA2. There were so many 'hole' metaphors, it was great3. This is the third book I've read by Gabrielle, and just like in the others at least one person will dieThis book says a lot and leaves the reader to come to their own conclusions about the themes, namely to do with family and romantic relationships.

I never get tired of variations on "terrible parenting" stories. You think you had it bad? The mother in this story maxes out her credit cards and then applies for credit cards in her adult son's name when the offers appear in the mail. Using his identity, she maxes out credit cards in his name too, practically destroying his credit. The dad, a hypocritical holy roller, denies his youngest daughter her rightful inheritance (from the grandmother) because she refuses to go to a church college. Sin...

The story of a fundamentalist Christian family in which half the members seem to be like Nikki in Big Love--unable to stop shopping or admit to their credit card debt--was surprisingly painful to read. Surprisingly painful because none of the characters were likable, and the family situation was so fraught and tense.Nevertheless, read it I did because, well, I had to see how it would end. Lamely, as it turns out. The first quarter is by far the best; after that, the author moves forward in six y...

This book was good however, it felt like it was about different things. More money and financial things to begin with, and more religion later on. Overall,good book.

I adored The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, so I wanted to read something else by Gabrielle Zevin. In some ways The Hole We're In reminded me of A.J. Fikry: Zevin's easy to read style, the way time slows or speeds during parts of the novel. In other ways, the two couldn't be more different: setting, characters, tone.The Hole We're In tells the story of the Pomeroy family. Pastor Dad decides at age forty to return to school for his PhD. Mother George works temp jobs to support the family whilst dad

One reviewer contends that this novel has people who cannot be admired, but can be loved. That assessment seems too strong. Everyone in and involved with the Pomeroy family makes poor, self-centered decisions that bring on ruin and alienation, leaving scant room for empathy. Even those who suffer from the poor decisions of others (Roger Pomeroy's prominently) elicit only moderate sympathy as they compound their problems with poor judgment. For the most part the author's skewering of religion and...

The shift from 'frenetic train wreck' to 'melancholic unfolding' in the first to second halves saved this book from itself. As sharply written as the first half was, it had the flavor of a satirical one-liner. To have carried it any farther would have been exhausting but not illuminating.As it was, the more wistful and multi-textured second half caused me to reflect on how much of the horrific parents' evil antics might have stemmed from having had children before they were grown-ups themselves....

I liked how quickly the story moved along, never bogging down in details, but sharply revealing more and more of each character's motivation and insecurities with the passage of time. The treatment of abortion in the future was a bit on the nose. This is a sad, sad, story of pride and selfishness and I couldn't put it down because at first, I related to the characters. In the end, not so much, but by then, I loved them, or felt I knew them at least. On the surface it is a cautionary tale about s...