The Long Road Home

Rating:
Summary: What do you think?!
Review: ... I think that Danielle Steel did do research on child abuse, or she knew someone who had been through the same abuse as the character. Gabriella went through some situations in the book that make you ask if all this can happen to one person, but that is not to say that it isn't possible. There have been many cases of abused children where one parent doesn't want to stop the other from the abuse, or they just didn't know how, which is one of the situations that Gabriella went through. I think that Danielle Steel wrote this book to prove that people who have been abused can still go through life, they might be scared for a while, but eventually they will find someone who will help them and that they will learn to trust. That is the purpose of the title of the book, The Long Road Home. To me, the title symbolizes that this one little girl had to go through life not trusting anyone and blaming herself for everything that happened to her, she had been betrayed or she had lost the person she had cared about, so she was just trying to find someone in the world that she could trust.

Rating:
Summary: Steele Inspires
Review: For inspirational words of hopes and desires, noone out there does it as prolifically in fiction as Ms. Steele. In, "The Long Road Home", readers are witness to a profound story of victory of the human spirit.

We meet Gabbie Harrison at a young age and follow her harrowing journey from vile physical child abuse by her wealthy mother, irritating ignorance from her father, and a 10 year old girl who is then totally abandoned into the hands of a strict yet loving Mother Superior.

It is here at St. Matthews Gabbie meets Father Joe Connors. Going against all they know to be immoral, a relationship of impossibilities flowers. Only to be gnarled into deep emotional desperation.

Gabbie's long road home takes her then to New York, to be on her own, to her writing, to more disappointment and despair. How she survives and conquers is a lesson in forgiveness and fortitude we can all learn from.

A well written story that moves quickly. I highly recommend this insightful read.

Thanks for your interest & comments-CDS

Rating:
Summary: Tissues, anyone?
Review: I found, as a person with physical abuse in my past, this novel was very touching and difficult to read. However, it reinforced very sharply to me several important points. Steel advocated through her writing that a person cannot blame themself for life occurrences beyong their control and among other things, it is important to face your past. I instantly felt connected with Gabbie. She captured childhood thoughts I still clearly remember verbatim out of my mind. This is my new favorite book. A must-read! Trust me, it's worth your time!! (and don't forget the kleenex!)

Rating:
Summary: great book gets your attention.
Review: I like this author a lot because she uses lots of detail when she explains anything. I liked this book a lot because it was the kind of book where i couldn't put it down because each page made you want to keep going. During every scene you could imagine a picture because she explained everything so good. I hated it when the Eloise beat Gabrielle. I think that this book deserved 4 stars because it used lots of detail and figurative language and it would have been five stars but it was too long.

Rating:
Summary: Depressing yet Inspiring...
Review: I read this book three or four months ago yet the story is still vivid in my mind. This is the kind of book that would leave a mark on your heart after reading it, perhaps on your soul too. Gabby Harrison is a product of bad luck. Her strings of bad lucks started from when she was born by a selfish, wicked & heartless mother who continuesly abused her ( as in physically-brutally & mentally & emotionally- the WORKS!). She blames her daughter for every unsatisfaction she had with her life. Gabby's father, a coward, was no help whatsoever, he might as well be dead in my opinion. He sees this abuse happening in his very nose yet says nothing, do nothing to stop it & worst, when he couldn't take it anymore, he simply left Gabby with her mother, went ahead to marry someone else & continued with his life. What a jerk! He was described as a weak person even in the beginning of the book yet I was hoping he would take Gabby with him. He said he loved her daughter & D.S did wrote details of his confusions & horror for his poor daughter, so I had the impression that in the end, he would simply turn around & saved his little girl. I was devastated when this didn't happend. Made me cry & hateful. I really do not like hearing or reading children being abused... let alone by their own parents, so this book was somehow a bit difficult for me to read. Yes, the description in the back of the book did emphasized Gabby's ordeal with her mother but I didn't think the abuse would be so detailed, it ached my heart & made me squirm. However, I continue reading it for hope that Gabby would grow up and would find the happiness & good luck she long deserved but the book just gets sadder & sadder... Is there no end to her tragedies? The poor thing. She was left to grow up in a convent, fell in love with the wrong person, who I might add was also a coward like his father ( he left her-by killing himself, a priest-i may add, all by herself to deal with an ugly situation they both started). She was force to leave the convent after that "incident", living in the real world, no longer in the protection of the convent for the first time in her life. So you can imagine her fears! She then again met a wrong person... just her luck. Who used her, abused her, etc. It's all overwhelming, frustrating & depressing!

Now, as you can see, despite my above comments, I still rated this book 4 stars. The reason is simple... I admired Gabby's strength in all this bad lucks she keeps getting. Her heart & spirit remained intact despite all this hateful, difficult circumstances she keeps getting herself into. Her innocence & her capabilities to love & trust despite it all makes this book heart warming. Her friendship to all the people in the boarding house, esp. the proffessor is also heart warming. She inspires me by never giving up! Her courage to lived her life the best way she know how was impressive. Everytime she fell, she gets right back on her feet. However tired & broken hearted she may be, she always manage to gather her strength & spirit to move on.

The ending of this book was not as what I expected. I expected a more happier ending. A reconciliation or perhaps the parents asking for her forgiveness - I know its kindda impossible but i wished it that way anyway. Yes, there was a closure to a lot of questions Gabby had for a long time in regards to her parents. Her meeting with her father was heart quenching. He's still a jerk! Gabby's new found love in the end also brought good to her life, though, i wished their relationship was more detailed & developed. I know this book isn't totally a romance, love story so it is understandable that it didn't concentrate on their relationship much.

The reason why I didn't rate this book 5 stars was because it was too heavy for me. Too dramatic perhaps. Too sad. Even if it was a happy ending, I still found it too depressing. I prefer a dreamy, romantic-comedy book. Story that sores up my heart & makes me dreamy in the end. I prefer Historical romances. However, if you are the kind of person who prefers sad, tear jerker, true-to-life story, then this is definitely the one for you. I didn't regret reading this one though. It's different from my usual book picks but... Overall, it was a good book.

Rating:
Summary: The Long Road Home
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I felt like I could relate to Gabriella in some way even though I haven't been treated like she had. Just for some reason I did.
Danielle Steel wrote a good one. I think this is the best book I have read so far.

Rating:
Summary: The Long Read Home
Review: Oh, my God! I have never read Danielle Steel before, and I certainly expected more than what I got from this bestselling author. The story was full of pathos and grabbed my attention all right, but much of the horror came from the poor quality of her writing and research. Such stories of abuse do exist, but I don't think Steel has a clue about the real impact that the (unrealistic) conditions she set up would have on a young girl like Gabriela. The dialogue was pedestrian and she continually "told" us what emotions her characters were having, rather than "showing" us through skillful storytelling. I will run rather than walk if I see another book by this author coming my way.

Rating:
Summary: The secrets of the past
Review: This book follows the character of a young girl called Gabrielle and is set in New York. At the beginning of the book she is constanly abused by her cruel mother, while her father stands by and is seemingly powerless to stop it.

When her father finally leaves Gabrielle, her mother becomes involved with another man and runs off with him, leaving Gabrielle at a convent where she is 'adopted' by the Mother Superior, who loves her very much. At the convent she meets a priest and they fall in love, but their love brings disastrous consequences, and two lives are lost.

Now Gabrielle has disgraced herself she is forced out of the convent, and has to face the world on her own for the first time. She finds a home at a boarding house, where a kind Professor befriends her, and becomes like a father to her. She also comes close to death once more at the hands of a trusted friend.

Gabrielle now has to live with the crimes she believes she has committed, and embarks on a journey to unlock the secrets of her past and her parents.

This is a brilliant book, and I would recommend it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Great book...blah ending
Review: This book was a definate page turner, I had a very hard time putting it down. This could have turned out to be so much more though. I would have love to have seen Gabrielle make it on her own utlizing her talents and degree from Columbia. I had to roll my eyes when she came into money and met the handsome young doctor. Kind of underminded the whole triumph over tragedy plot.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: This is a good book by romantic standards, and a decent book by my standards. The abuse that Gabriella suffered was realistically written and so was the way Steel described the scars that it left on her character. I liked most of the characters and the book was fast paced. However, I find a sexual relationship between a priest and an almost-nun disgusting. I didn't like the priest and found him to a weakling. I also didn't like that through out the book Gabriella was constantly leaning on a man to give meaning to her life. It would have been nice to see her be more independent. All in all I say this book is worth reading.