Tully

Rating:
Summary: I will never forget Tully
Review: I bought Tully two years ago when I was in Rome and desperate for something in English. I spent 4 days glued. Tully came to life, I cried so much, I did't always understand her but who can we completely understand or agree with. Since I have bought 4 copies of the book for friends who have expressed their praise. I have just re-read it and no doubt it will be read again some time in the future. I also loved Red Leaves (didn't guess) and I hope to get my hands on a copy of Eleven Hours soon.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!!!!!
Review: I loved this book! i started reading it and i could not put it down. The writing is excellent. Although, I did not agree alot with some of tully's actions, I can see where they came from. This book centers around Tully, a young confused girl who did not have much of a loving childhood growing up. The book tells of her high school life and her growing into a woman. Her best friend, Jennifer, is the only sane person, besides her boyfirend Robin, in her life and when a tradegy happens to Jennifer, Tully's life falls apart. The book tells how she deals with her friend's tradegy and her dealings with her boyfriend Robin. As the years go by, Tully meets her best friend's crush back in high school. Tully has always blamed Jennifer's crush for Jennifer's tradegy, but as she begans to know him she finds herself falling in love with him. That leads to the most diffucult choice of her life. This book is definaly a page turner. I could not put this one down.

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Summary: A gal's best friend on a rainy day.
Review: I picked up Tully at a book sale on a rainy day off work when I took salvage at my local shopping mall. I am an avid book worm and had come to realise that I couldn't remember the last time I actually sat down to read...and Tully brought me the reminder I needed of why I loved to lose myself in books. I got home from shopping, curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and didn't move for the next 8 hours when incidentally, I was reaching for the Kleenex.

Tully takes you on an emotional rollercoaster of a ride that I think every woman can relate to at some point in her life - an alarmingly unhappy childhood, the loss of a best friend and the heartbreakingly delicacy of being in love with two men at the same time. Beautifully written and pieced together so intricately, I turned the pages and walked beside Tully as she battled with the insanity of trying to decipher life and conquering the lessons that we all have to learn at one point or another.

This debut novel from Paulina Simons had me intrigued from the first line and kept me wrapped around it's little finger right to the closing word. I don't think I have, since reading that book, had my emotions wrung so completely. One minute my insides were screaming for Tully's pain while the next moment saw me positively glowing for the small victories she encountered in her battle to keep her head above water and not drown in the mediocracy of being "that girl" growing up in a small Kansas town. And when it seems that Tully finally has her life on track after such an unforgiving and violent upbringing, Jack comes home and brings with him the unbearable reminder that life was never meant to be easy...

I gave this book to my best friend for Christmas that year and it has a primary position in my personal library for frequent reference. It has been my dream for as long as I can remember to be a writer and although I am only amateur now, I hope that one day I will be able to pen a story that will affect others the way Tully did to me.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Why do you never hear about this book?
Review: I read this book after first reading "Red Leaves," which I liked, but not nearly as much as this one. Tully was an amazingly realistic character, despite the sometimes melodramatic situations she finds herself in. I think there's a lot of her, and her ambivalence towards life and, especially, love, in a lot of us. I really related to her "is that all there is" feeling with Robin, her infatuation with Jack and her final choice between them. I never quite understood what was so appealing about Jack, but I guess that's a little like life, too. Can't always understand someone else's great infatuation. Some of the Jack scenes reminded me a little too much of "The Bridges of Madison County," which was too sappy for me, but that's a minor complaint of what is overall a terrific book. I didn't do anything but read it for two whole days, and I slowed down at the end because I didn't want it to be over. I read all the time and that almost never happens. Hope to see more by Paullina Simons soon.

Rating:
Summary: JUST WONDERFUL
Review: This is one of my all time favorites that I just picked up again. It's an amazing, heartfelt story that seems to be at once personal and epic in its scope. TULLY is an intense work that has stayed with me through the years and is always a pleasure to revisit. Highly recommended--as is the rest of this author's impressive body of work.