They say that all families are different and this is certainly the case in this intriguing novel from David Guterson. His writing grabs your attention right from the outset in a tale that at times may seem to stretch credulity, but hangs together by virtue of its own logic as it spans over 50 years in the life of Diane Burroughs. Exploring themes of how much genetic inheritance influences the course of our lives through its main characters Diane and Ed King; it also looks at how a sense of entitlement can affect our judgement and how we treat those with less power. Guterson does all this, as well as weaving in references to Greek mythology, but at the same time, envelops us into the lives of his characters, resulting in a thoroughly entertaining story.

Had moments but disappointing overall. ( )

Excellent and fun book! I'm not giving anything away by saying it is a modern-day telling of Oedipus. But Guterson kept me intrigued by his characters at every turn of the page. ( )

I am weary of the bleak portraits of Seattle that every author from the area paints. Having finished Guterson's "The Other" which I loved because of its depth, I had high hopes for "Ed King". Instead, it was back to the bleak portraiture of the northwest, imbued with negativity from the characters.

One of my peeves is that while some authors paint a vivid portrait of place, Guterson names places but never gives the locations character or roundness. Like every other cliche northwest portrait, the focus is the weather. Grey, dark, bleak and rainy. Seattle has that but it also has spectacular sunny days July through October with a bright technicolor landscape from which to draw. He also names neighborhoods without ever drawing out the character of those neighborhoods.

Of course everyone who lives here is a techie. That's old, boring and cliche. Only a few from here are homegrown techies. Most of the geeks come from outside of Washington State to work in the tech industry. Washingtonians have deeper and richer histories than Microsoft. That is lost in this book which starts in 1962 and fails to pull out the real history of the city.

The characters are also cynical and each has an air of sleaziness or criminality attached to them. For that to be effective or make you want to have empathy or even care a little about the characters there has to be some redeeming quality.

Given the importance of Walter, he is never fully rounded and I felt nothing on his demise. Diane was an out an out con artist and again, I felt nothing for her. Simon isn't drawn well and it became confusing during Ed's teenage years as to how old he actually was - at first he seemed like he was about 18 or 19 and suddenly he's back to 16 or 17 and a high school junior. He moved from 19 to 27 in less than a chapter and it didn't feel like those formative years were filled with experiences beyond sex.

While the book is meant to evoke thoughts of Oedipus and Electra, the incessant descriptions of sex got boring quickly without evoking the above mentioned real stories about the agonies of those loves and the soul searching. I know he can write soul searching because I really felt that in "The Other." This time, the souls were empty.

I will pass my copy on to others who are interested in the author but I won't recommend it - I will be interested to see what conclusions those avid readers and fans of the author draw from it. ( )

Not well written or likeable ( )