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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
This book is incredibly long. The characters aren't that likeable (especially Merritt, for me anyway). I only made it a little over halfway and was so bored with the almost non-existent plot and the horrible people in it, so I didn't finish it. I've seen some reviews say that the first half and second half are very different; others say it takes half the book to get into it. I'm sorry, but I have other books I'd much rather read than spend over 200 pages just trying to get into this one. The writing is good- she is an author that has a very descriptive style- but the characters, and how slowly this novel moved, made me want to keep taking naps every 8-10 pages. When I'd rather do the dishes than force myself to read any more in this book, that's saying something.
What a wonderfully written story with strong women. I loved Loralee and her devotion to keep going through all the pain. All of her Mama's sayings and words of wisdom were great. Karen White has a great way of bringing her characters to life. The storyline of abuse was also great. You saw little bits of it from different characters at different times and how all of these characters weaved together was very interesting. All of this with a little mystery and romance too make for and awesome read! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my review.
I enjoyed this book but I did think that several basic questions were never fully answered and that made the book less satisfying to me. Three stars by the skin of its teeth.
I've been out of the South for 16 years, but you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl. One of the things I found so delightful about this book was how genuine it was, as far as settings and sayings. Karen White included many sayings I heard growing up, and it was a joy to hear them again.
Overall, I found the story was not really surprising, but it was still a very good read. I loved the characters, especially Loralee. I am sure she earned one whole star of this review on her own. I also really liked that one character was never redeemed. And I don't mean Cal. But I don't want to include any spoilers here, but the fact that this character did something by accident that impacted a lot of lives, and had to live with that . . . I kind of liked that. It made what could have been a pretty predictable book less predictable. And about that point, not every book is going to be a shocker, and nor should it. Just because a road is familiar, doesn't mean it isn't worth traveling. This was worth the drive.
Overall, I found the story was not really surprising, but it was still a very good read. I loved the characters, especially Loralee. I am sure she earned one whole star of this review on her own. I also really liked that one character was never redeemed. And I don't mean Cal. But I don't want to include any spoilers here, but the fact that this character did something by accident that impacted a lot of lives, and had to live with that . . . I kind of liked that. It made what could have been a pretty predictable book less predictable. And about that point, not every book is going to be a shocker, and nor should it. Just because a road is familiar, doesn't mean it isn't worth traveling. This was worth the drive.
In a lot of ways, The Sound of Glass is a rather bad book. The writing is pretty pedestrian, sometimes downright bad. Any scene where White tries hard to evoke an emotional response just feels forced. It's got a lot of horribly cliched elements like the unlikely “hate at first sight” romance (which was stupid and unnecessary – it would have been a stronger book without it), the unwelcome long-lost relative who isn't really appreciated until it's too late, the tense scene near the end where an emergency forces Protagonist to face the phobia that has been built up through the entire story, and sappy moral messages laid on with a trowel. Protagonist is a knockout who has no idea she's gorgeous and dresses like a frump, until she gets a makeover and comes out of her shell, and Romantic Interest is handsome, smart, funny, a doctor, loves kids, is somehow still unattached despite not being openly gay, and is . All ranging from *yawn* to *barf*.
But damn if the pages didn't turn anyway, and I found myself forgiving a lot of flaws. As bad as so many elements are, it succeeds on pure plot. White hands us a tightly crafted story where it's such fun to see the pieces fall into place that I just didn't mind the rest, even though I knew I should. And the annoying, inevitable, shockingly “oh no she didn't go there” romance, while it's pure barf, isn't too over the top. It's a minor subplot that can be successfully ignored if you're enjoying the other angles.
It's got all the makings of a hit movie, to the point that it feels carefully designed and packaged that way. Except it's so packed with angles it's really too many to cram into one movie. I see it playing best as a heartwarming odd couple dramedy - a reticent young widow from Maine inherits an antebellum mansion in South Carolina from her deceased husband's years-estranged grandmother, goes down to take possession, and finds herself saddled with a brash and thoroughly Dixie stepmother who is only five years older than herself and determined to give the dour Yankee a makeover as well as a fire-hose size dose of Southern culture. Loralee, born in a Wal-mart parking lot, raised in a trailer park, never seen without lipstick and 4-inch heels, and spouting endless Southernisms that all start with “My mama always told me...” would be the star of this version and would steal every scene. This story plays up Merritt's "woman out of place" confusion like a less screwball version of a Jackie Chan movie.
Like Merritt, you want to hate Loralee, and you start out assuming she's nothing but a gold-digging skank, but you gradually realize there's more than meets the eye. Like so many women, Loralee and Merritt both hide their true selves with masks – Loralee's is a 1000-watt Southern smile, a painted-on face, and a “Bless your heart,” while Merritt's is made of steely New England stoicism. And we eventually discover that underneath Loralee's mask She becomes lovable - even a little inspiring - in her goofy way, the way she finds the strength to smile through anything. Even though she has a lot of pretty backward ideas about womanhood, and a lot of real women (including me) would have told her to shove her lipstick and her curling iron somewhere dark.
But there's a whole other, much darker and more somber movie you could make where Loralee and her son Owen would become bit players. A movie about a 60-year-old plane crash, a mysterious letter, and three generations of battered women and abusive men. Children orphaned by a mother's untimely death, and wives widowed by a husband's timely death. Two families whose pasts are inextricably linked, and a creaking old house full of unhappy family secrets. That's the part that kept me up hours past bedtime, wondering what they're going to find in the attic when they finally open it, when they're going to find that old letter, and what the letter says that caused the family matriarch to shut herself up in the house for the rest of her life. Hint: It will take 60 years of story time and most of the book before we finally learn the contents of the letter.
Spoiler
Protagonist's own brother-in-lawBut damn if the pages didn't turn anyway, and I found myself forgiving a lot of flaws. As bad as so many elements are, it succeeds on pure plot. White hands us a tightly crafted story where it's such fun to see the pieces fall into place that I just didn't mind the rest, even though I knew I should. And the annoying, inevitable, shockingly “oh no she didn't go there” romance, while it's pure barf, isn't too over the top. It's a minor subplot that can be successfully ignored if you're enjoying the other angles.
It's got all the makings of a hit movie, to the point that it feels carefully designed and packaged that way. Except it's so packed with angles it's really too many to cram into one movie. I see it playing best as a heartwarming odd couple dramedy - a reticent young widow from Maine inherits an antebellum mansion in South Carolina from her deceased husband's years-estranged grandmother, goes down to take possession, and finds herself saddled with a brash and thoroughly Dixie stepmother who is only five years older than herself and determined to give the dour Yankee a makeover as well as a fire-hose size dose of Southern culture. Loralee, born in a Wal-mart parking lot, raised in a trailer park, never seen without lipstick and 4-inch heels, and spouting endless Southernisms that all start with “My mama always told me...” would be the star of this version and would steal every scene. This story plays up Merritt's "woman out of place" confusion like a less screwball version of a Jackie Chan movie.
Like Merritt, you want to hate Loralee, and you start out assuming she's nothing but a gold-digging skank, but you gradually realize there's more than meets the eye. Like so many women, Loralee and Merritt both hide their true selves with masks – Loralee's is a 1000-watt Southern smile, a painted-on face, and a “Bless your heart,” while Merritt's is made of steely New England stoicism. And we eventually discover that underneath Loralee's mask
Spoiler
she's hiding a genuinely good heart, and while she did have an ulterior motive for showing up unannounced on Merritt's doorstep, it was about as good a reason as they come.But there's a whole other, much darker and more somber movie you could make where Loralee and her son Owen would become bit players. A movie about a 60-year-old plane crash, a mysterious letter, and three generations of battered women and abusive men. Children orphaned by a mother's untimely death, and wives widowed by a husband's timely death. Two families whose pasts are inextricably linked, and a creaking old house full of unhappy family secrets. That's the part that kept me up hours past bedtime, wondering what they're going to find in the attic when they finally open it, when they're going to find that old letter, and what the letter says that caused the family matriarch to shut herself up in the house for the rest of her life. Hint: It will take 60 years of story time and most of the book before we finally learn the contents of the letter.
When you've got so many book titles floating through your brain, sometimes things get mixed up. I thought this was The Sound of Gravel! Whoops! I mean, I put it on my library hold list knowing it wasn't, but it took a long time for my turn to come around and by then I'd forgotten about this book entirely.
So I'm going to have a unique perspective here in thinking it was much more gentle, sickly sweet, and quiet than I thought it was going to be. It deals with domestic violence in a way that may be hard for some readers to handle, but I was expecting much worse so it seemed tame.
One thing I really didn't like about it was the way Loralee was written - why create a human just to act entirely non-human-like? I kept trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she was clearly written as more of a plot device than anyone that could be real, but her unrealistically perfect demeanor wore on me. Plus, she was just plain annoying in her over-the-top-ness.
So I'm going to have a unique perspective here in thinking it was much more gentle, sickly sweet, and quiet than I thought it was going to be. It deals with domestic violence in a way that may be hard for some readers to handle, but I was expecting much worse so it seemed tame.
One thing I really didn't like about it was the way Loralee was written - why create a human just to act entirely non-human-like? I kept trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she was clearly written as more of a plot device than anyone that could be real, but her unrealistically perfect demeanor wore on me. Plus, she was just plain annoying in her over-the-top-ness.
A very special thank you to the PENGUIN Group and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review of this book. Karen White is one of my favorite authors and I was beyond thrilled to be allowed to read this and review this book.
Synopsis: Beaufort, SC 1955- Edith Heyward starts to tell her tale of her life with son CJ and abusive husband. Amidst the sirens, screams, and smoke of a fiery plane crash she discovers a brown leather suitcase in her backyard that would normally be a nondescript standard item for a man to carry and tragically lose in this crash. Yet, she discovers a note inside with a message that she takes to her grave.
Beaufort, SC 2014: Merritt Heyward is a curator for a small art museum in Maine. As the widow of Cal Heyward, she soon learns she has inherited his grandmother's Greek Revival home in Beaufort, SC. A shell of the woman she used to be, Merritt makes the life changing journey to Beaufort for a new beginning. She is surprised to see her stepmother, Loralee Purvis Connors, at her door with her ten year old stepbrother, Owen (aka Rocky). Merritt wants to be left alone with her grief and the demons that haunt her. Loralee simply can't let that be and begins a journey to assist Merritt in reclaiming her joy and making peace with the past. Through this journey, Merritt and her brother-in-law (another revelation of her husband's past she had no knowledge of) discover there is more to the story of the plane crash and Edith's subsequent aid of the investigation than history previously thought.
Review: Karen White stuck to her roots of rich Southern storytelling of a tale of healing, redemption, love, with an element of mystery that binds three generations of Heyward family together. I could only give it a "liked it" rating due to some disappointments with the book. The mystery wasn't really that important in this book (I'm a mystery lover) which led to a focus on relationships and character development. Yet, the character development and relationships started to lean towards the makings of a Lifetime movie-several orphans, domestic abuse survivors, cancer victims, new love protagonist that the main character dislikes initially, and overcoming fear. All heavy topics that received snippet blurbs in the story which led to not a lot of depth to this book. I'm still a loyal Karen White fan and have plenty of her other books rated as "it was amazing". This one was just not one my favorites.
Synopsis: Beaufort, SC 1955- Edith Heyward starts to tell her tale of her life with son CJ and abusive husband. Amidst the sirens, screams, and smoke of a fiery plane crash she discovers a brown leather suitcase in her backyard that would normally be a nondescript standard item for a man to carry and tragically lose in this crash. Yet, she discovers a note inside with a message that she takes to her grave.
Beaufort, SC 2014: Merritt Heyward is a curator for a small art museum in Maine. As the widow of Cal Heyward, she soon learns she has inherited his grandmother's Greek Revival home in Beaufort, SC. A shell of the woman she used to be, Merritt makes the life changing journey to Beaufort for a new beginning. She is surprised to see her stepmother, Loralee Purvis Connors, at her door with her ten year old stepbrother, Owen (aka Rocky). Merritt wants to be left alone with her grief and the demons that haunt her. Loralee simply can't let that be and begins a journey to assist Merritt in reclaiming her joy and making peace with the past. Through this journey, Merritt and her brother-in-law (another revelation of her husband's past she had no knowledge of) discover there is more to the story of the plane crash and Edith's subsequent aid of the investigation than history previously thought.
Review: Karen White stuck to her roots of rich Southern storytelling of a tale of healing, redemption, love, with an element of mystery that binds three generations of Heyward family together. I could only give it a "liked it" rating due to some disappointments with the book. The mystery wasn't really that important in this book (I'm a mystery lover) which led to a focus on relationships and character development. Yet, the character development and relationships started to lean towards the makings of a Lifetime movie-several orphans, domestic abuse survivors, cancer victims, new love protagonist that the main character dislikes initially, and overcoming fear. All heavy topics that received snippet blurbs in the story which led to not a lot of depth to this book. I'm still a loyal Karen White fan and have plenty of her other books rated as "it was amazing". This one was just not one my favorites.