This was really emotional, it dives into the complex undercurrent of some of the most fundamental pieces of human life. The human condition is so unpredictable, the highs so unfathomably high and the lows so alarmingly low. I thought this book did a good job of expressing how surprisingly possible and common it is to go back and forth from one side of that spectrum to the other.

I LOVED this book. Maybe because it was read by Ethan Hawke. But, I’m telling you. This is a classic.

Well, Ethan Hawke is someone I admire too much. I may be biased in seeing his work from this perspective, by the way. However, can anyone point me flaws in this novel which are otherwise absent when a so-called 'novelist' writes such a work? Ash Wednesday reminds us of the novels that we used to read during our university years, the novels by writers in the early 60s and 70s... dark and negative but still wonderful to the core.

Della categoria di quelli che "mi è piaciuto anche se non mi è piaciuto".
Protagonisti francamente insopportabili: non fanno che deprecare lo squallore delle loro vite e al tempo stesso non fanno altro che crigiolarvisi dentro come suidi nel fango. È una contraddizione urticante. Ma suppongo che, se questa contraddizione la si trova così spesso nei romanzi, deve esistere realmente nel mondo reale, per tante persone.
In questo romanzo c'è tutto il lato un po' squallido delle periferie d'America: ma è innegabile che tale squallore possa anche arrivare ad avere un suo fascino. E sì, in questo romanzo ci arriva. È la stessa America raccontata nelle canzoni dei Pearl Jam, quindi non posso non ritrovarmici almeno un po', sebbene poi viva in un contesto e con un metodo completamente diversi. Ed anche la psicologia dei due, certe loro trovate e riflessioni, non sono per nulla scontate.
Ad un certo punto il racconto inizia a mostrare un aspetto inedito di tutta quanta la faccenda, si rivela un romanzo molto religioso, quasi mistico. La cosa non è molto nelle mie corde, a tratti ho perso un poco l'attenzione ma poi ci sono arrivata in fondo volentieri. Del resto, per intuire che potessero esserci riferimenti religiosi nel racconto, bastava fare caso al titolo. Sono io che sono tarda. C'è una fede fatta più che altro di illuminazioni improvvise ed estemporanee, pentimenti e ripensamenti.
Aspetto non di poco conto: è scritto bene. Dopo di che, poco importa sapere se veramente è stato scritto da un attore famoso o da un ghost-writer.

This book is one of only two books I have read twice since I started logging my reads in 2003. I rate it as one of my favs. It's about fatherhood. A somewhat reckless young man has to navigate the changes in his life that come with becoming a dad. I read this shortly after I was married and had my first kid so the timing was appropriate. I found the Jackie Robinson reference extremely profound (you'll have to read the book to see it). If you're a dad and husband, you'll understand.

Enjoyable road trip adventure about a boy who realises he is in love with the girl who he just dumped and goes awol fromt eh amry to take her on a trip to prove it

Again I received this book as a birthday present. It's on par with the first book. At it's heart it is a simple tale, but told in such a way that it keeps your interest. The only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 4 is because there's a part where he descibes a character as wearing a blue and gold Michigan State sweatshirt. As someone who went to Michigan State I took offence - our colors are green & white - University of Michigan (our main rival) are blue & gold. This mistake is unforgivable so he loses one star.

This is a funny one.... with all the detailed description of the almost neurotic thought process of the protagonists and the plot building slowly up one does expect a major catastrophe to happen. I confess I kept on reading as I wanted to see what kind of catastrophe it will turn out to be. Just to learn at the very end: none.

DNFed at 20%. I couldn't get into it, I couldn't connect to any of it, I don't know exactly why.

Ok so after people kept saying how great of a writer Hawke is, I risked a library loan.
Eh. On one hand, I actually really liked his style and prose. But also, the story never really happens. Both the main characters, while trying to be the "average disillusioned folks of their times", are painfully too ordinary and sometimes annoying and idiotic.
It's literally just two people, that really shouldn't be together but you also don't really care about enough to care, driving across the country having flashbacks of their uneventful relationship. Well written but pointless and dull.

It was ok, not bad, and that is what 2 stars is supposed to mean. It was a fairly absorbing read, but the characters were so prone to constant yet shifting self-analysis, always on the brink of disaster or in mid-crisis state, it was like a hyped up version of some fifties melodrama where everyone is having epiphonies every ten seconds, then something happens and they have a new epiphony. It was too much. Still... there was something interesting about the way the two characters thought about themselves and each other, and there were a few passages I really liked. So overall, it might be worth reading just for that. But I can't exactly say I liked it, yet I'm not sorry to have read it. Is that 2 or 3 stars' worth? Not sure.

Have to say that I really felt like he was writing about himself and Uma. Not that it's exactly representative, I think the main character was him but not him, sometimes an idealized version of a he-man Ethan wishes he were, then sometimes a big blockhead Ethan feels like he is. The girlfriend was tall and beautiful with big feet, always talking philosophically about everything (like Julie Delphy in 'Before Sunrise'), super smart and REALLY into sex all the time every day. I did feel like the female character, though admirable and cool and self-aware and confident and smart and all that, was still a male fantasy, one for bookish nerd boys who like women who are super smart and maybe a bit too complicated, thus a handful, but they are so sexy when they talk about nihilism and post modernist architecture and then take off all their clothes.

Libro messo in wishlist praticamente solo perché scritto da Ethan Hawke, l'attore, senza sapere nulla della trama. E' la storia di Jimmy e Christy, delle loro esistenze problematiche e del loro tentativo di condividere la vita e formare una famiglia.

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