Paint It Black by Janet Fitch (2006, Hardcover)

Janet Fitch is a Brilliant author! In this book she takes us to dark places but you can not mind because I got so wrapped up in the art of the story and her words that I wanted to keep reading. I highly recommend this!

Due to thoroughly enjoying her first novel, I eagerly purchased her second. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. This was boring, overwritten, and a pathetic story. I would not recommend this book to anyone...unlike her first book which i recommended to everyone!

I received an advanced reading copy of this novel back in August, I think. I read it over 4 or 5 days. It progresses slowly, and is overwritten and too wordy at times. I felt as though the book was leading to a great payoff, and, the end is hugely disappointing, and, I am not quite sure why she went that way. There are some tender, wonderful moments in the book, but mostly I felt disconnected from both the mother and the girlfriend.

The landscape of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles during the time period was quite authentic, having grown up here myself, but I still did not find that enough to upgrade to four stars.

Overall this novel was quite a let down for me, from her first, White Oleander.

Perfect, the book was exactly as described. Arrived quickly, in great condition. Thank you so very much again..Also a very good book. I enjoy it a lot!!!

Her first novel, White Oleander, is one of the best books I have read. The character development is excellent. I was disappointed by this long awaited follow up novel. It did not flow easily at times and the characters were not always 'real'.

very nice experience to read this novel--would recommend owning this book!Language is so simple and lucid---enjoyed reading

Janet Fitch is a tremendous writer who first got my attention with White Oleander. That was an incredible first novel.

This one is more polished but just as good. I read it in two days time and would fall asleep reading while trying to stay awake. Janet has the ability to let the reader inside the heads of her characters and at the same time write descriptions of the setting of the story with very few words. It is actually amazing how she does this. I could be inside the scenes that she wrote. I could actually smell her scenes.

The plot is tremendous, far from the worn-out tired plots in popular fiction. Her plots twist and turn and take you right along causing the reader to feel terror, exasperation, boredom and terrible despair....but it isn't really a downer of a book, not to worry. Her characters are bizarre but believable and she has great compassion for them. They are lovable and then sometimes you just want to wring their necks..but isn't that how people are?

Anyway, I am not much a reviewer but more a reader and I highly recommend Paint It Black.

Cowgirlpeege

Although I really loved Janet Fitch's other novel White Oleander, I did not enjoy reading Paint It Black. The book focused on the misery of the main character. The "twist" is a disgusting description of incest, and the resolution never really occurs. The melodic writing of Fitch occasionally breaks through the misery she tries to portray, but it's not worth reading.

Janet Fitch does a great job on her third novel. Novel is very well written with a good topic and deeply written emotions. Janet spaces the book out well, and knows how to tell a good story.

A friend of mine loaned me this book to put a parentheses in my Joyce Carol Oates reading marathon of the Wonderland quartet. I knew that I could not compare Jane Fitch to Joyce Carol Oates. I had forgotten about my negative feelings re: White Oleander, but I went ahead and started this read in hopes to be entertained, taken away...the book begins interestingly, and sadly, the suicide or death of a boyfriend when one is in her early 20s is extremely difficult...I proceeded with the story line, at around 200 pages, I wondered why I was reading this...The characters were not sympathetic, Fitch's writing bothered me, as she seemed to struggle to relate to her main character, on drugs, on booze ... ambulating from one outlandish situation to the other... about 50 pages from the end Fitch finally makes you want to finish this book, but by then its awfully late... Her last 50 pages are worth reading, Fitch begins to tie the story together, and makes this story palatable...again I did not like White Oleander (though it certainly was a better story and more interesting than this one), Painted Black had potential, had a place to go...I think Fitch needs to write about what she truly knows, these dark characters that she so wants to write about, seem fictionalized... A just very okay read, nothing more...