Grace

Rating:
Summary: Warmer than a Yule Log!
Review: Hindley's remarkable first novel is, at its root, the ancient story of human kindness. But it is the characters - each grappling with their own foibles, needs, and worries - who provide the layers and depth that make Grace such a warm and engaging read. They are an eclectic lot, linked by strong personalities and feelings, and by one of the most encouraging of all human instincts - the desire to help each other out. A great book for Christmas or any time you want to be reminded that there is goodness in the world.

Rating:
Summary: A Heartwarming and Inspiring Read
Review: I love this book! With a beautiful, spare style, this author has given us a moving and inspiring holiday story. And, for anyone who remembers the old Harvard Square (before it became a shopping mall), they will find it here! I predict that Grace will become a new holiday classic, a book people will read year after year during the holiday season. I know I will.

Rating:
Summary: A Hoiday Treasure
Review: It's no small feat in today's world to find a book that renews your faith in the power of kindness, generosity, and perseverance to restore personal dignity and even to transform lives, by giving them meaning and connection. The story of "Grace" hooks you immediately, introducing you to characters that can be found in almost any contemporary urban community. You'll recognize people that you've shared a sidewalk with, that have taken your order in a restaurant or have checked you into your room at an inn, but this time, you get to see beneath their surface and discover what their lives are about. And because the characters that populate this book are so wide ranging, from a young African-American girl struggling to survive, to a gay couple settled into a long-term, loving relationship, to a single, attractive woman looking for love - you'll find some people that are familiar and you can easily relate to, and others that give you a chance to get to explore a whole new corner of the world.

Told with equal measures of insight and sympathy, their stories unfold and touch each other and, in the process, connect you with some of the major themes of our times - from immigration and poverty, to shattered families and the quest for connection, this book provides warmth and hope. Rich in its details, the book's setting is at times uniquely evocative of Harvard Square, with its eccentric mix of personalities and businesses that are avant-garde, or elegant, or funky - but all of them are right out there, engaged and engaging. Most of all, I loved its message that the family you choose can be as nurturing and supportive as your family of birth, and if you fight for yourself, you can find your niche. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book; it was an affirming and joyful experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves great stories, well told.


Rating:
Summary: Grace itself
Review: This book does a number of things with remarkable skill. It creates, or recreates, Harvard Square as it used to be -- this is one of the things I like best. It recreates that old 'group-house' scene some of us remember so well from the '70s and '80s -- those early mornings and late nights sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and chatting endlessly about love and life. It weaves together the lives of an entire group of people -- and does so in a way that illuminates how, in fact, our lives reverberate with the lives of those around us, how we are shaped by one another. It presents a gay couple as if, my goodness, they were real people, with a real relationship, and real concerns outside of the relationship. It presents a foster child as a sympathetic character without making her a sappy 'Sunday's child,'; 'Child' in fact adds zing to the story with her tough-kid take on things. It even generates sympathy for immigrants, likewise without condescending to them: they're intelligent and interesting people, not merely needy and strange.

Grace does all of this and more while moving along with great energy. In every chapter and every subsection, it supplies just the right amount of information about plot and character. Never does it lapse into generalized experience; one always has an explicit, vivid scene right before one's eyes. And the book does all of these things in fine style, with many moving moments. I have cried only once before in reading a book (when Mrs Ramsey died in To the Lighthouse), but I blinked away some tears at the climax of this story, a sweetly beautiful scene, so nicely anticipated and so skillfully put together. If there is an equally moving moment in the book for me, it is the quiet one in which the central character Nick stands on the sidewalk in front of the inn, looking up at the winter sky and thinking about the friends he has lost to AIDS.

As a 'Christmas book,' Grace goes well beyond the usual fare, conveying all the right sentiments for the season without reverting to the conventional views of family life that dominate the holidays. A good read; highly recommended.