Rating: 
Summary: Takes the heart by surprise
Review: At first I resented the intrusion of the other voices. I was so entranced by Hannah and Celia. I loved the writing -- on every page there was a surprise for me, a turn-of-phrase that sent me in brand new directions or just delighted. Hannah and her pimples (she gives acne a good name) are so vivid. She is touchable, and she fulfills the requirement I have whenever I read a novel (one that often doesn't get met): to make my heart burst for the character. Gradually, I surrendered to the other characters too.
Rating:
Summary: Takes the heart by surprise
Review: At first I resented the intrusion of the other voices. I was so entranced by Hannah and Celia. I loved the writing -- on every page there was a surprise for me, a turn-of-phrase that sent me in brand new directions or just delighted. Hannah and her pimples (she gives acne a good name) are so vivid. She is touchable, and she fulfills the requirement I have whenever I read a novel (one that often doesn't get met): to make my heart burst for the character. Gradually, I surrendered to the other characters too.
Rating: 
Summary: i didn't read this, my friend did
Review: I didn't read this, but i'm on the phone with a friend who did and she thinks it's ok. Actually, she's still in the middle, and by the way, she has a great relationship with her mother. She likes it and will probably finish it soon. I would love to read it, if I had more free time. I just stopped working, and I'm probably watch a little TV and maybe go to bed. When I retire from work, I hope to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: This book has heart and soul....
Review: I loved this book, especially the scenes between Hannah and her grandmother. They reminded me so much of my relationship with my Jewish grandmother...a little spicey but with a foundation of unconditional love that made any "sour" notes sweet. I also identified with Hannah's relationship with Celia, her aloof mother, because I had a mother like that. My mother "disowned" me at a younger age, but I think it would be devastating at any age. This book reminded me of The Red Tent, in a way...it had that womanly flavor; a juicy book about the strength, character and individuality of women, without completely excluding interesting men. Katie Singer is a remarkable writer...this is a real page-turner, and I learned a lot...about Jewishness, about the Yiddish language (which I grew up with but which I never actually learned myself, so it was good to have some renewed lessons) and about the wholeness of a broken heart. Thanks, Katie!
Rating:
Summary: This book has heart and soul....
Review: I loved this book, especially the scenes between Hannah and her grandmother. They reminded me so much of my relationship with my Jewish grandmother...a little spicey but with a foundation of unconditional love that made any "sour" notes sweet. I also identified with Hannah's relationship with Celia, her aloof mother, because I had a mother like that. My mother "disowned" me at a younger age, but I think it would be devastating at any age. This book reminded me of The Red Tent, in a way...it had that womanly flavor; a juicy book about the strength, character and individuality of women, without completely excluding interesting men. Katie Singer is a remarkable writer...this is a real page-turner, and I learned a lot...about Jewishness, about the Yiddish language (which I grew up with but which I never actually learned myself, so it was good to have some renewed lessons) and about the wholeness of a broken heart. Thanks, Katie!
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent---
Review: I so enjoyed this book. Like reading literature again, each word was rich and full. The story told by generations of family was meaningfully interwoven. While the story reminded me of my own family dramas, it also taught me understanding of where the difficult people find their roots--both in this family and my own. Keeping this one for my library!
Rating:
Summary: "This one is wonderful."
Review: I'm always drawn to Jewish family sagas, maybe because my own grandparents died when I was too young to ask them for their stories. So at a recent Jewish book festival I loaded up my shopping basket with half a dozen novels. When the cashier reached The Wholeness of a Broken Heart she looked up and told me, "This one is wonderful." She was right. Katie Singer has done a fantastic job of creating four generations of Jewish women who are recognizable, yet never stereotypical. In fact, Hannah's mother, Celia, who inexplicably rejects her daughter once she has left home for college, is the virtual opposite of the stereotypical Jewish mother who never wants to untie the apron strings. The novel is narrated by four generations of women, living and dead -- all in present tense, which some readers dislike, but which I find compelling. The heart of the story though is its exploration of the relationship between Celia and Hannah. The stories told by Hannah's grandmother and great-grandmothers, even though they covered a century of Jewish history, from Cossacks to the Holocaust, seemed to me to be aimed primarily at discovering what went wrong between mother and daughter. To be more precise, the book seems to center on what went wrong with Celia that she could become such a terrible mother. Her daughter, Hannah, might be considered the protagonist, but it was Celia who stoked my curiosity. Despite the explanations offered for Celia's behavior, I never found her a sympathetic character, and of all the characters in this book her actions seemed hardest to swallow (as another reader reviewer mentioned). On the other hand, I found Hannah both believable and sympathetic. True, she is quiet and introspective; very few writers aren't. And nearly all draw on their own family stories for material. I was rather surprised by reader reviews that said Hannah lived the "life of Riley," and needed to "get a life." She has a life, a quiet writer's life, living modestly on a teacher's salary, walking to work rather than buying a car, devoting time to her students and to her own poetry, and stretching a roast chicken into a week's worth of leftover dinners. Would it somehow be more of a life if she spent her time writing ad copy, eating fast food and running up credit card bills? A couple of reviewers, both reader and editorial, also felt the story was contrived. As a writer of novels myself, I know that to create interesting, believable characters and then to have a storyline flow naturally from their behavior is a LOT harder than it looks. Leaving aside the fact that any novel is a contrivance by its author -- characters are fictional people after all -- I found very few places in this novel where the characters' behavior seemed to be dictated by the needs of the plot rather than by their background, upbringing or personality. The only instance I did find, in fact, is when Hannah decides to put off moving to New Mexico to be with the guy she's in love with, electing to remain put so that she can be there for her grandmother, Ida. This would have made sense if she lived in the same neighborhood or even city as her grandmother. But in fact, grandma is in Cleveland, and Hannah lives in Boston, where she talks to her grandmother regularly but manages only a few visits a year. I can imagine Ida -- who wouldn't be Jewish if she didn't want to see her granddaughter happily settled down -- saying, "What? They don't have phones in New Mexico? Planes don't fly from there?" In this one case, I think it was the author, Katie Singer, who needed Hannah to stay where she was. But this is a very minor quibble that detracts very little from a remarkable first novel. For this book, I would give the highest praise a writer can give: This is one I wish I'd written.
Rating:
Summary: This book is wonderful!
Review: Katie Singer has written a beautiful story about love, family, and becoming a woman. I especially enjoyed hearing the story of this family unfold through the voices of characters that spanned several generations. This is one of those stories that you will want to savor for quite some time before picking up your next book. As a writer, Katie amazed me with her use of simile (it reminds me of Amy Tan's) and her vivid descriptions. It's hard to believe that this is her first novel!
Rating:
Summary: Loved this book!
Review: My sister-in-law loaned me this book, saying I would love it, and I did. I read it in a few days. I took it to my mom, who passed it on to my grandmother, who passed it on to my sisters, and they all loved it too. We all agreed that it's the kind of book you wish would just go on and on, the kind of book where you finish the last page, and all you can think is "wow!".
Rating:
Summary: A masterful tale of four generations
Review: Not since Erica Jong's book Inventing Memory have I enjoyed a multigenerational tale as much as The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer. In her debut novel, Ms. Singer who was inspired by family stories presents her readers with four generations of Jewish women spanning two continents beginning in the late 1800's. Told in the voices of the four women of this family, the book reflects these women's own stories set against historical events. Central to the plot is the relationship between the modern day and difficult mother Celia and her dutiful daughter Hannah. And it is Hannah that the stories will someday belong as she begins collecting them as a way of understanding her mother. This is a moving book which captures the readers attention particularly if one is from an immigrant background. Interspersed in the narrative are Yiddish expression which loosely translated provide the reader with a language rich in humor and wisdom. In addition I highly recommend this book to those with a Jewish background whose families may have experienced similar stories and histories. And for those unfamiliar with this culture and traditions of Judaism, it is an opportunity to learn of a way of life which in some respects is sadly gone but in other ways is very much alive. Ienjoyed this book so much that I now fook forward to reading future works by Katie Singer. She is a gifted writer who has provided readers with an excellent first novel. May she have a long and happy life and as we say, "May she have blessings on her head."
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