content: I honestly don't know how this novel has become a classic. As an avid reader I had to practically force myself to get through this book and only did so because my book club was reading it. I wasn't the only person in our club who was disappointed. It was a miserable story and pointless. It was a great discription of life in Brooklyn during that time period but Betty Smith never made me care about the characters enough to care about what happened to them. This novel needs more character development to be a classic. I only give it 2 stars instead of 1 because it really is a great description of life in Brooklyn.