Rating: 
Summary: Quicky Review
Review: A beautifully detailed novel filled with an abundance of well-developed characters. These qualities are rivaled by a lack of emotion in the story telling during the moments that count. But what do I know.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent storytelling, but lacks illumination
Review: I enjoyed this book and the relationship between Theresa and Daisy. The writing was excellent and the descriptions of minor characters like the people who own the Scottish Terriers, clear and precise. However, I didn't really understand Theresa's motivations for her actions, nor did I get that delicious gut feeling that I got reading Elizabeth Berg's novels about a girl around this age. Those are really heartstring tugging. I suppose McDermott wants to take a cooler approach and more distant. My other problem with this book is that summer days are inevitably repetitious, which made the book repetitious.I also do not believe for a moment that a 15-year old girl would remain naked under a blanket tent on a busy beach for even a millisecond.
Rating:
Summary: impossible to believe
Review: This book was completely spoiled for me by the relationship between Theresa and the painter. I kept re-reading sections, trying to figure out what would attract any 15-year-old girl to a 70-year-old lecherous drunk, but nothing in McDermott's writing seemed to explain it. It actually turned my stomach and I almost didn't finish the book, but I had to find out what happened to Daisy and the Moran kids.
The prose in this book is really first rate, and I enjoyed the rest of the book, but I'm still trying to figure out the painter-thing. I picked this book up at the library because I had read Charming Billy and really enjoyed it, but this one makes me not want to read anymore of Alice McDermott.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but I won't write home about it
Review: My first thought while reading this book, which I picked up because it received excellent reviews in both Salon and the LA Times Book Review, was that maybe I was just not getting it. At first blush, the book tells a tale that is remarkably uneventful, and Theresa, the main character, is somewhat of a snot (charming with children, no doubt, but only sees the worst in most she meets). Another reviewer's comment about the unbelievability of some of the character's actions also had me nodding my head. A coming of age novel about a fifteen year-old girl who quotes Macbeth off-the-cuff and has more confidence than the much older rich folks she works for - she hardly seems like a naive little one to begin with. The characters believability breaks down particularly with her attraction to the 70-year-old artist. Still, it was an interesting device, and when I came here to review it, I found that I didn't have the heart to give it less than three stars. See, the book really grows on you. Some of the characters really are delightful, particularly Daisy, and some of the passages in the book really are masterfully crafted, beautifully and excellently written. Finally, there is a sentimental and woeful quality about the novel that is so subtle and nuanced that I barely noticed it until I was done with the book, and thought about it for a moment. Overall, I enjoyed it, although it's not without it's flaws, and it may take a bit to warm up to.
Rating: 
Summary: Magic!
Review: What's unique about this coming of age story isn't only the precision and beauty of the language, but a main character, Theresa, who is thoroughly enchanting. It's not every day you come across a teenage character with all the magic of Mary Poppins herself, whose ability to charm little children, small animals (and the little children's fathers) is so thoroughly believable. I was comfortably lost in a magical fictional world, a place where lollypops seem to grow on trees and magic shoes can change color. I was so sad when I came to the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Now this is prose
Review: Alice McDermott is one of my favorite writers and I loved this book. Theresa is a 15 year old wonderchild, who is not only beautiful, but blessed in her ability to take care of other peoples' children. She cares for her cousin, Daisy, Flora, the daughter of a local artist, and a host of Moran children, and Swansons. What drives this book is that beautiful prose McDermott uses throughout--clean and lovely, never wasteful. You know there will be trouble ahead by the easy bruising on Daisy, and I found it a little unsettling that Theresa does not mention it to any adults, and that her own parents do not notice either. But in this world, parents do not seem to notice their children, why would they notice a bruised foot? Only a physician parent notices, but he is too busy giving Theresa the eye, and asking her for babysitting time.
Last Night is still my sentimental favorite Alice McDermott book, but this is a close second. A lovely book, with characters you won't forget. It's a slim volume that should not be read too quickly, savor it instead.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I have read and loved every one of McDermott's other novels, but this one is disappointing. While I agree that her prose is exquisite, the story fails to illuminate in a convincing manner why the main characters, especially the 15 year old Theresa, do what they do. One fully never is able to grasp why Theresa becomes sexually attracted to the 70 year old artist, who is a poor excuse for a father, a drunk, and an out-and-out philanderer. Nor does McDermott provide enough context clues about Theresa's character for a reader to really understand why Theresa would simply fail to inform an adult about her cousin's Daisy's medical problems (bruises appear on her feet and other parts of her body for no apparent reason). How many beautiful 15 year old girls would want to have sex with an ugly, drunk 70 year old man and ignore the serious medical condition of someone she truly loves? MeDermott provides some insight but not enough in this short novel to make this reader believe in the characters or the story.
Rating:
Summary: Inspired, Beautiful Prose;Some Reservations...
Review: You can read this book in one concentrated sitting, and the book feels like an inspired burst of breath. There are many passages of writing that are superb - some of the best sentence-writing McDermott has ever done... and that's saying something. Mcdermott's forte has always been rendering the specificities of life with a sober, but poetic slant. There is nothing really intriguing about the events themselves in McDermott's novels, but filtered through McDermott's eyes, everything becomes somehow meaningful... even sacrosanct. This book can be called a bildungsroman, but unlike most rite-of-passage books which tend to take a sweeping view of a person's life, this novel takes a slice from a girl's life (a single summer, a few weeks) and examines how such a short moment transformed everything in the world for her. The story is simplicity itself. Theresa is a fifteen year-old, a precocious babysitter, who looks after her young cousin, Daisy. On the surface level, not much goes on in the novel. There are adults who make up the moral landscape of the novel, and it's a tribute to McDermott's strength as a writer that much of this moral landscape is filled in through the absence of these adult characters... this vacuity that exists in the novel makes this suburban world of Theresa seem very lonely. The climax of the novel (which I won't give away) is quite foreseeable, but this doesn't distract us from being engaged. The ending is as natural and inevitable as life itself, and although unspoken, it is quite clear that Theresa will never be the girl of fifteen again hence. As I've mentioned, some of the writing is magnificent. The last fifty pages of the book achieve a kind of incandescence; I got one of those rare buzzes you only get from a special kind of writing. The prose alone can transport you. But at the same time, some nagging aspects of the novel got in the way of the story. It is clear that Theresa is fond of Daisy, but their relationship seemed too cloying at times. Undoubtedly, this is realistic; children can be attached to someone unequivocally. But it became repetitive... the constant 'poor daisy's' uttered, noxzema cream slathered on feet... This is a coming-of-age tale as only McDermott can write it. Most of the denouement of the novel, Theresa's coming to terms with life and its gravity, the passing of youth, becomes apparent through unspoken terms. Sure, this book doesn't quite fully plumb the depths of the characters as her excellent novels from the past. Nevertheless, McDermott's insight is enlightening, and the book contains some of her most effortlessly passionate writing to date.
Rating:
Summary: Deep breath...
Review: ...Wow. One might be tempted at first to say that this doesn't live up to "Charming Billy." The story of "Child of My Heart" isn't much of a story at all, when compared to Ms. McDermott's previous novel. Where "Charming Billy" spanned decades and told the stories of the lives of several people and how they were all affected by Billy, "Child of My Heart" confines itself to a few days in the life of the beautiful Theresa and her summer charges. Simple, yes, but utterly heartbreaking. I found myself stopping to re-read sentences that merely told of a gesture or a breath. There are chapters in Ms. McDermott's sentences -- things untold that mean the world and explain even more. The color of a girl's shoes, the way sun shines off a man's hair, it's the details in this novel that make it a wonder. It's the details that make the world of "Child of My Heart" so believable that not one plot point seems forced or even expected -- you are lulled by the sound of the wind on these summer days, the movements of the shadows on a porch, and are satisfied enough simply to follow Theresa, Daisy, and company to the beach or to an attic. This book will stay with you long after you are finished. You won't expect it to, and you may even be skeptical when reading of lollipops and rabbits, but just go on and read it and do yourself a wonderful favor.
Rating:
Summary: A Small Miracle of a Book
Review: To read Alice McDermott is to enter a wonderland made up of familiar terrain but you still need a road map. With her clean, economical prose she cuts right through the arrogance of the wealthy and the submissiveness of the poor. Fifteen year old Theresa is unlike anyone I have ever encountered in fiction but have known in real life. Thoughtful, kind, and confident, she marches through Long Island, ministering to the neglected children of the rich. When her eight year old cousin Daisy comes to spend a few weeks with Theresa's family, Theresa recognizes how much in need of repair Daisy is. Physically but also emotionally, for Daisy is one of many children of a poor family and has been not abused so much as over looked. Theresa's own family seems to emotionally neglect her too, so caring for Daisy is, in a way, also caring for Theresa. They have a strong bond and Theresa creates a lovely summer for her. The thoughtless and careless ways of the rich are balanced by the thoughtless, careless, ways of the poor. Reading Child of My heart is like reading a primer in how to behave. Do yourself a favor and read this wonderful book. Thanks goodness for Alice McDermott!
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