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Summary: Nothing like what I thought
Review: Ho hum. I thought the plot to this novel was interesting, but the writing was boring. I read this before I read "The Poisonwood Bible", and almost didn't read "Bible" because I was so bored by this one. Mediocre at best. "The Poisonwood Bible" puts this book to shame!
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Summary: I can always count on this writer to make me think!
Review: "All families are weird." So one of Barbara Kingsolver's characters declares, and he is (of course) absolutely correct. But what is a family, anyway? Why is this concept such an important one, and how does it change from one culture to another?When Taylor Greer reluctantly fell in love - not with a man, but with an abused and terrified little girl abandoned in her car - she found out, day by day and challenge by challenge, what motherhood meant. "Pigs in Heaven" opens three years after the conclusion of "The Bean Trees," in which Taylor adopted Turtle (so named because of the way the child hung onto her) by typically unconventional means. Turtle is a happy and healthy six-year-old now, and Taylor has settled into an uncommitted but loving domestic partnership with a man who adores them both. Mother and daughter are visitng the Hoover Dam, on a vacation that professional musician Jax can't share, when Turtle is the only witness to a retarded man's accident. The resulting rescue puts mother and daughter on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Where idealistic Cherokee attorney Annawake Fourkiller sees them, hears Taylor tell Oprah how she came to adopt her daughter, and realizes that Turtle - a child of color "found" by a white woman during a trip across Oklahoma - must surely be a fellow Cherokee. Annawake Fourkiller visits Taylor Greer to let her know that under the Indian Child Welfare Act, Turtle still belongs to her tribe no matter what legal proceeding may have given her to anyone else. The young lawyer doesn't anticipate what Taylor promptly does - which, of course, is run. Leaving Jax behind in a heartbeat, along with every other part of her support system, she takes to the road because it seems like the only sure way to keep her daughter. What follows is an odyssey of discovery not just for Taylor and Turtle, but (although she doesn't travel as far as they do physically) for Annawake Fourkiller as well. Not to mention for Taylor's mother, Alice, who comes west from Kentucky after her recent second marriage expires from boredom; for Jax, who stays behind in Tucson; and for Cash Stillwater, an aging Cherokee who returns to the tribe after leaving it several years earlier when he lost his mother, wife, and adult daughter, all within a few months of each other. "Pigs in Heaven" is another of Kingsolver's marvelous depictions of human nature as it really is. Always honest - sometimes brutally so - its humorous and occasionally lyrical prose brings the characters' interwoven stories together at last, in a way that may not surprise most readers but is nevertheless profoundly satisfying. A keeper. I can always count on this writer to make me think as well as feel! --Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle"
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Summary: Different from fist book, but good
Review: Pigs in heaven is different from the first novel where me meet taylor and Turtle, but a great and easy read. Interesting story.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not terrific
Review: In this book Ms Kingsolver discusses some compelling "new-age" issues--preference for being a single versus permanently-coupled mother; love after age 60. However, she brings on way too many characters without developing them fully, which tends to muddle the story line. I have no idea why the author dedicated so much time to Barbie, who finally disappears. Yet the story and three main characters--Turtle, Taylor, and her mother--are believable and we keep our fingers crossed for them, just as Anawake is a young and meddling lawyer-nuisance whom we wish would grow up.
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Summary: it was a nice insight into Cherokee culture
Review: I just finished "Pigs in Heaven" on audio tape. It was a pretty good followup to "The Bean Trees." The same woman read both books, which was nice. Though not told completely from Taylor's point of view, as was "The Bean Trees," it's nice to hear her familiar voice thoughout the tapes. My only complaint was the relationship between Taylor and Jax. She was never home long enough for us to get an understanding of the relationship. So much of what we saw was conducted long distance, that I didn't really accept how their relationship ended up. Otherwise, it was a nice insight into Cherokee culture. The story is a continuation of the lives of Taylor and Turtle. Because of a highly publicized incident at Hoover Dam, the two end up on the run from authorities who are trying to return Turtle to her native Cherokee people. Fate has a hand in their lives as they both grow to learn of their heritage.
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Summary: great follow-up
Review: Although I found this book to be great alone, it is a better follow-up to The Bean Trees.....Both books make great, easy reads...If you're looking for a book to just get lost in, these are it.
Rating:
Summary: JAXXXXXXX!
Review: I am very taken with Turtle, Taylor, Alice, Cash, and Annawake. I felt much closer to Taylor in TBT, probably because it was written in first person and I liked that much better. I loved Alice and Cash's love thing and Annawake's bitter, mourning feelings about losing her brother (though I wish we could have seen her interact with him), but my favorite parts in the book were with JAX! He's so funny and tragic. He's not even mentioned in most of the reviews. I thought I'd read about someone who felt the exact same way. Oh well. I probably would have given Pigs in Heaven 5 stars if Kingsolver had just shown us Jax at the end of the book.
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Summary: A must for any adopted child
Review: If you are adopted or have an adopted child, this book is the best I have read which shows clearly the two opposing sides in an almost perfectly balance. At the beginning of the book, relatives of Turtle's biological family find out about her and try to take her back, while of course her mother is doing all that she can to keep her child. This is every adopted kid's nightmare and fantasy at the same time--that "the people" will come and take you away. Both sides are painted very fairly but it will be an emotional read for anyone who has lived through it.
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Summary: the book was pretty good
Review: this book was pretty good but not as good as the first one The Bean Tree. i thought somehow the writing style was diffrent, or something made it not as good as the bean tree. it's about taylor running from the cherokee nation because turtles adaption was kind of a hox. i did like how it involved her mom alice. i liked how it showed the cherokee culture and it told a little about their history, like they had the first public schools. i am interested in american indian culture so i liked that aspect of the book. it was weird how characters kept coming in and out of the book, and some of them were really weird like barbie. all in all i'm glad she wrote the sequal because i got to see what happen to taylor and turtle and i'm glad i read it.
Rating:
Summary: Nobody's Perfect
Review: Kingsolver returns to her loveable main characters from The Bean Trees in this sequel. Taylor and Turtle are on the run from an attorney who has discovered a flaw in Turtle's adoption from three years ago. What follows is a difficult lesson in the meaning of cultural heritage to a child and to a people. The whole time, however, I felt as though I was reading Kingsolver's response to some accusation that The Bean Trees implied that Native Americans abuse their children. At every chance, we're shown how wholesome and supportive Cherokee society is when compared with the rest of the U.S. Mainstream America could probably learn a few things from the Cherokee Nation, but Kingsolver goes overboard and loses credibility. The desire to show a world full of well-meaning nearly takes over the book. As a reader, you always know you're dealing with a "Good Guy" because he or she has all the right opinions about women, minorities, the working class, and the disabled. That's fun for escapism, but it lowers the stakes of a story. Where's the real conflict, if all the main characters agreed with each other from page 1? Perhaps that's why the ending failed to provide a truly satisfying resolution. Personally, I agree with Kingsolver's political and social views, but that's not why I read books. I read to be challenged and to see characters struggle with the problems of life. Pigs in Heaven has a great story with great personalities, but the author has other, better books out there. (PS: Read "High Tide in Tuscon" for some lovely, unadulterated, and opinionated essays by Kingsolver.)
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