Blessings

Rating:
Summary: Blessings by Belva Plain
Review: I began reading this book, minding my own business, not having any prior knowledge where it was going and whoa - the adopted daughter shows up on the scene. Since I'm a birthmother who successfully found her daughter I was immensely interested in this take. This book was well done, suspenseful, exciting, and beautiful. It had a great ending!! Loved it! Rosemund and Maeve have always been my favorite authors, but now I have someone else to read. I ordered all the rest of her books.

Rating:
Summary: Jay-us ex machina
Review: There are really fine moments in this book when Jennie and Jill struggle to work out a painful relationship and when Peter struggles to make up for his cowardly past. And there are nice descriptions of some of the pricier parts of New York City. But I find that the characters easily lapse into stereotypes. The situations, as portrayed, seem artificial. And the ending is contrived beyond belief.

This could have been a serious character study of the pain and pitfalls experienced by a character suffering from low self-esteem who seems to have learned little from her prior experience. Instead, it's a cavil. I suspect that the author knows the difference between what's genuine and what's ersatz but, for some reason, has opted for the latter. I'd like to see her compose the sequel in which Jennie overcomes her fantasies of love and trades her mannequin for a man of some depth and character to be a stepfather to her lovely duaghter.

Rating:
Summary: Blessings
Review: This review refers to the unabridged audio cassette read by Pamela Klein. The story involves a young girl who had a child out of wedlock during college. The father of the child was from a wealthy family and would not marry her. Adoption was her only choice.

Years later the grown child, named Jill, began to search for her real parents even though she had a wonderful adoptive family. Jill was able to first locate her father (Peter) who became a successful anthropologist. She was then able to find her mother (Jenny) who achieved her dream and became a successful attorney. Trouble starts when Jill visits her real mother Jenny. Jenny is engaged to be married but has not told her finance (Jay) that she had a child a long time ago...then Peter comes back into her life...

The story stirs up all kinds of the emotions. The reader will become immersed in the story and not be able to put it down. The reader's voice on this audio was too high pitched and she read too fast, however. Otherwise it was a great book!