School for the Blind

Rating:
Summary: Complex and moving
Review: I have read and re-read this book. I have also recommended it to others, and everyone has liked it! The characterizations are so good, and the ending is quietly hopeful. The reader can really enjoy Muriel and Brimm as they confront how they have dealt with their dark childhood and try to grow beyond it, even as they face Brimm's death. I really like the way they struggle to acknowledge painful events and learn from them -- but still not let themselves be completely defined by them. The murder mystery -- I really haven't been able to grasp how that ties in with the rest of the story; it seems tacked on and out of tempo with a self-exploratory novel, but it does fit in with the emotional timbre of the book. Also, involvement in the mystery does give Muriel a chance to be active in the present and to impact her community in a positive way, as she contributes to finding the serial killer.

Rating:
Summary: warm, humorous, uplifting.
Review: I was enjoying this novel, but not taking it very seriously. The writing was competent enough, but I found it a bit pretentious when it tried to be important. Then, I changed my mind. It is a very uplifting story of two elderly people who are able, as septuagenarians, to grow through self discovery. One of them meets the kind of end most of us would like to meet, with acceptance and dignity, amidst loved ones. I found this book especially heartening as a senior citizen (and as a recent reader of Wallace Stegner's "Spectator Bird" in which the elderly character views himself as being in a line, getting ever closer to the end as friends in front die). "School for the Blind" is warm and humorous. While things work out well for several of the characters, McFarland wraps up the plot without being implausible or sentimental.



Rating:
Summary: A story told in multilple layers
Review: School for the Blind is a great book, a cut above the rest. I read this book when it was first published and still recommend it. It is the story of an elderly brother and sister, one who is dying and the other who lives a dull, resentful life. Both have spent their lives running away from their painful past in different ways. They have come to a point where they have to face these painful secrets and at the same learn how to grow old with their family history. Into their lives comes a young woman, confident, pregnant and alone, she is the breath of life that they have denied themselves for so long. Add to this the shocking murder of two high school students at the local school for the blind, an investigation, threatening phone calls and you have a suspenseful good read. Intense and heartfelt at the same time, this is one of those stories that I'll never forget. I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this novel
Review: This book isn't even a good story. I can't recommend it to anyone except die hard McFarland fans. I was halfway through the book still wondering when something interesting would happen. Unfortunately, it ever really does. I would rather go to a nursing home and listen to the ramblings of a real person with their memories and dreams than read this made up drivel. Please find a new genre Dennis.

Rating:
Summary: long winded with no pay-off
Review: This book isn't even a good story. I can't recommend it to anyone except die hard McFarland fans. I was halfway through the book still wondering when something interesting would happen. Unfortunately, it ever really does. I would rather go to a nursing home and listen to the ramblings of a real person with their memories and dreams than read this made up drivel. Please find a new genre Dennis.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this novel
Review: This is wonderful, knowing book. I loved reading it and have returned to re-read much of it again and again.