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If I Told You Once
Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Wonderful debut
I became familiar with Budnitz's short stories through The New Yorker; I fell in love with her delicate, quirky tales told with economy and precision of language. Her expertise and flair seem to lie in shorter narratives versus what she attempted with "If I Told You Once". It's a charming story of growing up in war-era Eastern Europe, coming to America, and the generations linking those experiences. Two other recent novels, "Middlesex" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," share those plotlines, and, if it weren't for Budnitz's unique writing style, I wouldn't have been as satisfied.
Rating:  - Absolutely Stunning.
This story was so beautifully written. The similes and metaphors used were extremely effective, and also the fact that there were no quotation marks used. This made it seem more like a story, rather than text written on paper. The voice used for each character was very unique. Each girl a different person, but with similarities in all of them. This was the best book I have ever read in ages. Excellent page-turner.
Rating: - A Wonderful Russian Folk Tale-evocative of Gogol
This novel is a wonderful take-off on old Russian Folk Tales, evoking Gogol at his wildest. It starts off well enough but improves vastly as it moves forward, and eventually resettles the tale in the New World. It is written with wit, compassion, and a wonderfully provocative prose style.
It is a shame that writers with trendy themes, or some sort of artificial hype...get thrust high into the limelight, while true writers, real writers, women and men who will no doubt write until the day they die because telling stories is just in their blood, such as Ms. Budnitz, have to be discovered in the relative shadows.
Rating:  - Amazing voyage
This book follows 4 women growing up in a poverty stricked environnment. Told with amazing words. Definetely a good read.
Rating: - Oddly Compelling & Depressing..
Don't let the cover of this book fool you;this is not a funny book,maybe in a tragio-comedic way. It is really about how the so-called "American Dream" eludes several female generations of a Russian-Jewish emmigrant family. Its not a typical "rags to riches"story like most books dealing with Jewish immigrants. In a way,I like how the writer avoided that obvious trap. It was rather sad though and could have used more humor,as it started to bring me down the more I read it. That aside, This young woman is a writer to watch,Her metaphors and observations are both unusual and memorable.
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