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Palisades Park
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
8 posts | 11 read | 13 to read
Bestseller Alan Brennert's spellbinding story about a family of dreamers and their lives within the legendary Palisades Amusement Park Growing up in the 1930s, there is no more magical place than Palisades Amusement Park in New Jerseyespecially for seven-year-old Antoinette, who horrifies her mother by insisting on the unladylike nickname Toni, and her brother, Jack. Toni helps her parents, Eddie and Adele Stopka, at the stand where they sell homemade French fries amid the roar of the Cyclone roller coaster. There is also the lure of the world's biggest salt-water pool, complete with divers whose astonishing stunts inspire Toni, despite her mother's insistence that girls can't be high divers. But a family of dreamers doesn't always share the same dreams, and then the world intrudes: There's the Great Depression, and Pearl Harbor, which hits home in ways that will split the family apart; and perils like fire and race riots in the park. Both Eddie and Jack face the dangers of war, while Adele has ambitions of her ownand Toni is determined to take on a very different kind of danger in impossible feats as a high diver. Yet they are all drawn back to each otherand to Palisades Parkuntil the park closes forever in 1971. Evocative and moving, with the trademark brilliance at transforming historical events into irresistible fiction that made Alan Brennert's Moloka'i and Honolulu into reading group favorites, Palisades Park takes us back to a time when life seemed simplerexcept, of course, it wasn't.
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julieclair
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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My July choice for #ReadOrDonate is Palisades Park, historical fiction about a legendary amusement park near where I grew up in New Jersey. What will everyone else be reading and/or donating?

AmyG I grew up near there, too…in Bergen County. 2d
Amiable I read this one —I don‘t think I enjoyed it very much. I think I was disappointed because I liked this one so much: 2d
Read4life @AmyG I grew up in Passaic County. 🤓 2d
See All 16 Comments
AmyG @Read4Life I was born in Paterson! 2d
TheAromaofBooks I'm going to try and clear out another Nora Roberts backlog 2d
Read4life @AmyG me, too!! 2d
AmyG @Read4Life Ha! Barnert Hospital. 2d
julieclair @AmyG @Read4life I was born in Paterson, too! At the old Paterson General, which no longer exists. And I grew up in Bergen County, In Wyckoff. But our church was in Paterson - in the Totowa section. So I kind of grew up in both places, Wyckoff and Paterson. 1d
Read4life @julieclair @AmyG I was born in St. Joseph‘s. I lived in Prospect Park which borders Paterson. 1d
AmyG My parents almost bought a house in Wycoff. I grew up in Fair Lawn. Small world @julieclair @Read4life 1d
julieclair @AmyG My dad's best friend & his family lived in Fair Lawn. He was the superintendent of schools there for many years. @Read4life I lived in Hawthorne, right next to Prospect Park, until I was 4. Small world indeed! Now I'm craving Texas weiners, lol! And Taylor ham. 😘 1d
AmyG @Julieclair Too funny! 1d
gossamerchild I'm still working on Cryptonomicon :-D In my defense, I haven't picked it up in a while. My plan is to get back to it this month. I WILL finish it! 17h
julieclair @Amiable Moloka‘i is on my TBR, but I don‘t own a copy. It‘s interesting that you liked one so much more than the other. I‘m predisposed to like this one because of its link to my childhood. 😉 16h
julieclair @gossamerchild You will finish it for sure. I have faith in you! 16h
Read4life My grandparents lived in Hawthorne in the house my grandfather and great grandfather built. I spent many summer days in the Hawthorne pool!! 13h
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Aims42
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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Pickpick

When everything just syncs up👌 I loved “Palisades Park” so much! It gave me very similar feelings as “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” so if you enjoyed that, you would maybe like this too! I‘ll give you the warning nobody gave me though…. do not read it if you‘re hungry. The French fry descriptions were too much for me and I found myself salivating several times 🤤😜 I‘d go so far as to give it five stars 🤩

Susanita French fries are one of my favorite things to eat! 🍟 3y
Aims42 @Susanita I never really knew how much I loved them until reading this book 😂 It got me thinking which restaurant has the best ones? Which led to more salivating 😂 3y
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Kshakal
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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Eggs Beautiful cover 🎡❤️🎢 3y
28 likes1 stack add1 comment
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IamIamIam
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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I love when my Facebook memories are about reading! This was 3 years ago, pre-Litsy, but this book has stuck with my and I remember it clearly, which says a lot for me! I pulled it off the shelf because I was doing authors alphabetically from the library (inadvertent #LitsyAtoZ) and the spine was gorgeous!

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Amiable
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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Panpan

I wanted to love this book. After reading “Moloka'i” and “Honolulu,” I was expecting another home run from Brennert. I was wrong. The writing in this book is pretty flat. The plot reads more like separate vignettes designed to list a lot of historical references in the order in which they happened. The narrative just moves from one vignette to the next, with no real emotional impact or understanding of the characters‘ motives or thought process.

MayJasper 😞 7y
59 likes1 comment
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Reita325
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
Pickpick

Historical fiction. A trip down memory lane and a love letter to the park.

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Joshdzebley
Palisades Park | Alan Brennert
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I just started reading this book I love it

TaylorMay That's awesome! I never really got into it. 9y
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