sonia_reppe's reviews
1293 reviews

I hesitate to put this under the spirituality/religion heading because the author doesn't take a stance on this, she just means for this to be a memoir. Most of the time it seems she doesn't know what to make of her "stepfather" David Terrell, the charismatic leader of a revival church. She watched him heal people; any doubt of it was revoked by two things in her early adulthood: she met a mother who had a deaf son who was healed when the mother brought him to Terrell's revival and he was touched by the healer/preacher; and then the author herself was healed of a mysterious ailment that she had had for months the instant that her stepfather laid his hand on her head.

So David Terrell was a healer; whatever else he was is something she questions. She found it hard to reconcile the fact that he was a preacher but also carried on an affair with her mother (and others). He lied, had grandiose views of himself, and eventually became rich and went to jail for tax-evasion. He was so willing to live in poverty in the early days, yet turned into someone who bought numerous homes and fancy cars for his personal use.

In this well-written and engaging memoir, Johnson gives us her experience in this revival community. She doesn't make this about God, except to wonder if He was as close to Terrell as Terrell claimed (if at all). She doesn't come to any conclusions about spirituality or such; it seems she is looking back on her childhood in an objective way, because she always had questions, even then.

It's a good portrait of someone (David Terrell) who had a gift and then developed a too-big ego from it, resulting in delusions and down-fall.

Some parts reminded me of the movie "The Apostle."

Text book for my Intro to Indexing and Abstracting class. Even though this text book is from 2001, the rules of indexing don't change as fast as other areas in the information sciences, so I don't know if the next edition would come out any time soon.

Beautiful cover, just OK writing. I picked this up because the main character is a teenage girl, but surprisingly it turns out to be too much of a guys book.

First, I am annoyed by historical fiction that is populated by famous characters; it's just not real to me. In this case it is Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey that have big roles (but plenty other famous people make an appearance too).

Second, I got tired of all the baseball in the second half; it got repetitive and it didn't help me know Ruby or her story. It was like the author just used this character as an excuse to write about Babe Ruth and this time period. I hated the chapter that is about Jack Dempsey's fight with some other boxer.

The worst is that at around page 150 things got over the top and stayed that way. So many bad guys wanted to beat up Ruby--bootleggers, the KKK, gangsters, gamblers...How many bad guys does this story need?! It only needed the one gambler/fixer who was forcing Ruby to lose games in order to win bets--that would have been threat enough.

The author's passion for baseball history came through, but I felt like he was not good at writing a woman character. She was unrealistic, especially when Ruby talked with her (under-developed character) friend, Helen. Women don't talk like that, even back then. I know the author was trying to make Ruby look tough, and show that women can be smart and skilled, but some things were just impossible: like at the beginning when Ruby worked on Coney Island, pitching 300 balls a day on only 5 hours of sleep and not doing anything else? And Ruby, at 17 and 18 years old, never had any romance or love seeking thoughts at all. She was like a robot. She pushed back and defended herself when she needed to but I got no real emotion from her, except that she loooved baseball.

I could be more picky about the writing, but I'm not going to, because the setting was written well and I did enjoy the first 100 pages of this 460-page novel.
Well, if you really love baseball and historical fiction, you would probably like this book.

I am intrigued by cat behavior. I really liked the humor and the personal connection. This book wasn't just anecdotes, it was about Bob's life as a cat owner. He and his wife also have a lot of birds, and he wrote about that (Enslaved by Ducks). I haven't read it, and I probably won't, because I'm not that interested in birds, but if it falls into my hands I may read it because I liked Tarte's writing. Someday I will get more cats...

The father/minister is sooo one-dimensional, how could I take this book seriously? The switching point of view between four different voices was really annoying, especially in the littlest daughter's voice. The oldest daughter was the most real and believable and likable; the story should've been centered around her. I couldn't believe how much this book dragged; for a book that so many women liked (including Oprah), the momentum was horrible. I will never read another "ambitious" novel.

This novel is so unique and original, I can't even explain it without giving it away. I recommend it to anyone who wants good writing and something different. Lately I had been feeling like I was in a rut, reading the same types of books, starting many and finishing few; and those few didn't satisfy for long. After reading this, I feel I've had a soul-nourishing meal of genius and craftsmanship.

At first I was like, oh, he's writing about animals again (like Life of Pi); he must like animals; but why so much about taxidermy? Then you see that this book is really not about animals, that's what throws you, yet everything fits together. The foreshadowing is so sublime that you only see it after. The shadows that creep into the plot are so subtle you don't notice that the sun has gone down until it's completely dark.

The play-within-the-novel device is expertly done, with humor, tragedy and poetic elements. The two characters in the play, Beatrice and Virgil, end up to be the most memorable.

This is a pretty conventional YA romance. I thought it was just OK, but then the payoff is good if you're in a romantic mood. The writing wasn't great and the structure was poor: a lot of the action was told to the reader second-hand. Like when one major character dies, we're just told about it three months later. The main character, Leah, was always catching us up on what happenened, like when she met her best friend, or had interactions with Mark, or when people died. It really annoyed me that I, the reader, didn't get to see these scenes. Also, since I don't know about planes or working in a small airport, it was hard for me to picture what was going on sometimes. The reason I stuck with this is because the love interest is the type of guy character that appeals to me: the brooding, mysterious, sexy James Dean type.

Pretty good writing for a plot-driven novel. Abbott rocks the imagery and--I don't want to say Cheerleading metaphors because that sounds too simple and it was more subtle than that--she reveals Addy's cheerleader life, the good and bad. The plot got kind of awesome in the second half; it really kept me guessing. As for characters, Addy and Beth's relationship had depth, so that was cool.

Meg Abbott is one of my new favorite authors. I like her style. In this book she stayed close to only three characters: the first person narrator Lizzie (14yr), Mr.Verver, and Dusty. I would say this book is psychological suspence, but if you like a faster plot this isn't for you. If you like to simmer on one character for a long time, then you will like this as much as I did.

Century is a frontier town in Oregon where the resources and pastureland are being fought over by ranchers and sheepherders. Esther, a nineteen year old orphan, comes to this town to seek out her third cousin, her only living relative once her mom dies. This cousin, Ferris Picket, is a rancher who is trying to claim the land for cattle. The fighting over the land escalates and Esther falls in love with a sheepherder-- an enemy of her cousin Pickett.

I liked the romance element in this book but there was not enough of it. I would describe this as a slow-moving plot-driven novel. The writing was too formal and ponderous, and too much passive voice. The ending made a huge difference between 2.5 stars and the 1 star that I gave it. I naturally wanted to know if Ester would end up with her sheepherder but the reader is denied that satisfaction. Decide for yourself; I think you will agree this is a horrible ending:

"Let one not be delivered into an ending, even a happy one.  Let one not tell everything-- whether she and Ben remained together, or separated and met again, or never met again, whether her daughters are his daughters, their young brows hilariously dire...There is no ending, happy or not, and no one is completely lost...And Century is tiny, after all.  Look how the mind can hold it, rock it, like a child."

That is the suckiest ending ever!