Julie Powell charmed readers with Julie and Julia, in which she chronicled her quest to cook, in one year, every recipe out of Julia Child's...
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Love, Beauty, Salvation from a very unlikely setting.
Ms. MacKinnon's narrator and main character, Clara, is most comfortable with the corpses that she lovingly prepares for burial. She has no friends, other than the undertaker with whom she works - and her flowers, which seem to blossom miraculously for Clara.
Being immersed in Clara's thoughts is learning how an extremely depressed and lonely young woman thinks. Yet, a glimmer of hope lies beneath the Gothic setting and compelled this reader to devour this mystery.
The characters are real and complete. The settings are vivid, though mostly seen through shadows and mist. The reader wants to help Clara solve this dark mystery and bloom as a fulfilled woman, like her garden.
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(5 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
Many readers quickly reject this novel because they perceive the subject matter, a school shooting, as too painful. Those readers miss an excellent, compassionate opportunity to learn, and thus, to prevent further damage to our youth.
By exposing the reader to the feelings of the shooter, a victim, the parents of both, the lawyer, and the police, Ms.Picoult offers her readers a range of emotions with whom to ponder, perhaps even identify
Again, as with her excellent previous novels, Jodi Picoult forces her readers to search their values and assumptions, a lofty goal for every author, met by few.
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(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
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Lynda East has commented on (2) products.
Tethered by Amy Mackinnon
Lynda East, July 14, 2008
Love, Beauty, Salvation from a very unlikely setting.Ms. MacKinnon's narrator and main character, Clara, is most comfortable with the corpses that she lovingly prepares for burial. She has no friends, other than the undertaker with whom she works - and her flowers, which seem to blossom miraculously for Clara.
Being immersed in Clara's thoughts is learning how an extremely depressed and lonely young woman thinks. Yet, a glimmer of hope lies beneath the Gothic setting and compelled this reader to devour this mystery.
The characters are real and complete. The settings are vivid, though mostly seen through shadows and mist. The reader wants to help Clara solve this dark mystery and bloom as a fulfilled woman, like her garden.
(5 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Lynda East, January 2, 2008
Many readers quickly reject this novel because they perceive the subject matter, a school shooting, as too painful. Those readers miss an excellent, compassionate opportunity to learn, and thus, to prevent further damage to our youth.By exposing the reader to the feelings of the shooter, a victim, the parents of both, the lawyer, and the police, Ms.Picoult offers her readers a range of emotions with whom to ponder, perhaps even identify
Again, as with her excellent previous novels, Jodi Picoult forces her readers to search their values and assumptions, a lofty goal for every author, met by few.
(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)