Rating: Summary: The trip home was long but well-described Review: 728 pages (hardback) of flowery descriptive prose that this aspiring poet loved and hated! I couldn't help thinking "where is that red pen?" to chop about 200 pages of mind-numbing detail from the script. HOWEVER, Coming Home is a geographic of the heart, not hearth. It challenges definitions of family and class distinctions, and it underscores that home is the place from which we face the world, hopefully surrounded by love, faith and consistent support. This is a great bedside book and worth the time it takes to read!
Rating: Summary: Below-par writing that fails to enchant Review: As soon as sufficient characters are introduced in "Coming Home", any reader with her eyes open (I must say her, because who could imagine any male ever suffering all the way to the end? even I couldn't manage that) can predict just what the resolution of the novel's relationships will be. Unfortunately, in a novel populated with "Diana"s, "Athena"s, "Loveday"s, "Rupert"s, and "Carey-Lewis"es, the plot can rise no higher than the silliness of its character names. Look out for the plain, Anglo-saxon names-- they'll be the tolerable characters. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't get interested in the people and events of this book. They fell flat, somehow: to me Pilcher's storytelling was too obviously invented. The moments designed to bring readers to tears evoked laughter. And despite a clear facility for language and vocabulary, Pilcher's paragraphs left me bored and reduced to skimming. Perhaps I didn't thrill properly to descriptions of Cornish lifestyle and atmosphere, but what a hoot were the meticulous descriptions of how each room was furnished, each character attired, and how each garden lay! Lines of extraneous minutiae to set each scene; I'm no expert, but "show, don't tell", Ms. Pilcher, for greater effectiveness in writing. But my favorite was the description of alcohol! It added humor, if no visible plot advancement, to be frequently enlightened that so-and-so had sherry, X had cider, Y had whisky and soda, and Z had beer. I don't lack heart and I recognize the drama of the WWII backdrop, but the novel falls sadly short of potential. Also it's hard to take seriously a wartime novel with a pale pink cover, floral script, and embossed roses on the jacket. Perhaps better as a film in which the scenery of Cornwall could be seen and not described, and the men and women could be visibly proven to have substance. How highly amused am I that my copy was a respectable-looking, hardbound edition, instead of the paperback novel which in all rights it ought always to be.
Rating: Summary: Sorry to see it ended... Review: I became a fan with the "shell seekers" and read all her books ever since. I relished every word of Coming home.... and I hope one day to visit Cornwall!!!
Rating: Summary: Another Novel of Pilcher, Wonderfully Written! Review: I really got into the book after the first couple of chapters where Pilcher sets her tone of the story. I enjoyed the characters very very much, and could follow Judith Dunbar, the young girl, as she experiences many events starting through her life at the boarding school, and beyond. As always with Pilcher, she describes the emotions very well, as though the characters at one time reaslly exsisted and experienced these events back in the time of the Depression. I think it is a GREAT read, and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone craving a good family saga!
Rating: Summary: A Refreshing Read Review: It isn't often that an author such as Rosamunde Pilcher comes around. She writes in the narrative voice that literally coaxes you to go to the couch and curl up with a pot of tea and her novel. COMING HOME was the first Pilcher book I read and afterward I was captured as one of her biggest fans. Pilcher has a way with each of her books to capture her readers from the first page to the last. In any Pilcher novel the reader finds themselves relating to the main characters by feeling their pain and their happiness.In COMING HOME, this main character is Judith Dunbar who finds herself torn from her family due to World War II. Pilcher takes the reader to Cornwall and a festive amount of characters that Judith begins to know. They are an odd assortment: The best-friend the reader cannot do without, the romantic, the family atmosphere that Judith so craves---- and in end, the excitement involved with simply putting all these characters together in one story. After reading COMING HOME I found myself in love with Judith and her best friend, Loveday Carrie-Lewis. The entire novel was simply enchanting. Readers of Pilcher's are looking for a book written with class, a good narrative voice, and a happy ending. COMING HOME has all elements that a good book has---- well built characters, a big problem, a careful solution, romance, relationships that steadily build, and the change that all main characters' make from the first time you meet them, to the last. COMING HOME is a wonderfully classy read. All readers will find themselves in enthralled with Judith's life and all who are in it. At the end of each Pilcher novel you sigh because it's over, and you're running to get another. All Pilcher-readers find themselves loving her easy going, narrative voice which is completely refreshing. Pilcher takes on a voice in COMING HOME that makes World War II seem more bearable to read about, and all crisis's easier to deal with. If people could live their lives like Pilcher writes a novel, everything would seem just a little bit easier to deal with. After a long day at work or at school, COMING HOME is the perfect book to take a load off and just wrap up in a novel that will entertain the reader until it sadly comes to an end.
Rating: Summary: A Refreshing Read Review: It's pretty difficult to rate any of Pilcher's books above the Shell Seekers. ... and this one does NOT make it.
Rating: Summary: not the shell seekers Review: It's pretty difficult to rate any of Pilcher's books above the Shell Seekers. ... and this one does NOT make it.
Rating: Summary: Favorite Book Ever Review: This book is one of my all time favorites. It's an amazing story about a girl's coming of age during World War II. The friendships and romances in this book are heartfelt and touching, as is the emotion of a family dealing with the pressures of war. It's Pilcher's best, in my opinion, although The Shell Seekers is a close second.
Rating: Summary: Like Coming Home Review: This is my favorite book ever. By the end of the book, I felt so close to Judith, the main character. Ms. Pilcher does such a beautiful job of following Judith's life, you feel as if you know her. Definitely Rosamunde Pilcher's best.
Rating: Summary: I LOVE this book! Review: This is my favorite book. I'm reading it again - again. My favorite thing about this book is the way you get to feel so close to all of the characters. You follow the life of one girl through WWII. It might sound a little boring but, believe me, this girl's life is anything but ordinary. She is left in a British boarding school while her parents are living in Singapore. She is 14 and starting school in an unfamiliar place. Eventually she makes friends with Loveday Carey-Lewis (silly name, I know) and this changes her life drastically. As Judith grows she encounters loss, love, and a creepy old guy. It's a book about growing up and, of course, coming home. Rosamunde Pilcher makes all of the characters seem so real. It is easy to picture them in your mind and even easier to feel for them. Judith is not the only character whose life you get caught up in. There are many characters who we can all relate to. Personally, I think I'm a bit like Loveday. Anyway, this book is a definite must-read.
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