Rating: 
Summary: A Graceful debut.
Review: Although she previously wrote and directed the film, Dream for an Insomniac (starring Ione Skye and Jennifer Aniston), this is Tiffanie DeBartolo's first novel. She lives here in Boulder, and spends time at my favorite coffeehouse, which is where I met her. She tells me she just finished her second novel, and expects it will be in bookstores this fall.
GOD-SHAPED HOLE is about the human "search . . . for something to fill up that big . . . hole in our souls" (p. 58). Whereas some people use alcohol, sex, drugs, food, or even new shoes to fill up their inner void, after Beatrice "Trixie" Jordan (a jewelry designer) meets her soulmate, Jacob Grace (a freelance writer and novelist), by responding to a Los Angeles' personal ad "seeking a friend for the end of the world," DeBartolo's lonely, main characters satisfy their inner yearning with each other. Their resulting relationship, however, seems more sexual and desperate than alchemical, and destined for self-destruction. A dark cloud hangs over their relationship. When Beatrice was twelve, a fortune-teller told her that her true love would die young, and fifteen years later she finds herself dreaming of whirlpools.
DeBartolo's edgy love story was inspired by the death of singer Jeff Buckley (revealing also that DeBartolo is influenced by really good music). Those readers unfamiliar with Buckley may miss DeBartolo's numerous references to the troubadour, whose 1994 debut cd was titled "Grace." In DeBartolo's novel, Jacob Grace is writing a book titled "Hallelujah." "Hallelujah" was also a song on Buckley's album. Like Beatrice leading her Dante out of the flames of the Inferno, Trixie dreams of escaping LA with her Jacob to Memphis (aka Graceland), where Jeff Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River. Jacob's coffee is described as the color of the Mississippi River on page 303. Debartolo even dedicates her book to Jeff. (After quizzing me, she assured me there are still other references to Jeff Buckley in her book that I've missed.)
However, I liked DeBartolo's graceful debut as a novelist most of all because, in GOD-SHAPED HOLE, she made me laugh with her hip sense of humor.
G. Merritt
Rating: 
Summary: "truth is king."
Review: for all of you cynics out there who find it SO hard to believe in anything, this is the book to read. the main characters in this story, and the incredible connection they shared, caused me to think about ideals i had long since given up on. with all the tripe that is out there right now, it's rare to find a book that evokes such deep pure emotion, but debartolo's innate sense of loss and love, and her amazing ability to capture the sweetness of a true relationship, is really remarkable. this was an absolutely perfect, imperfect love story.
Rating:
Summary: A Really Great Love Story
Review: God Shaped Hole may have a good plenty of cliches, but it doesn't stop it from being a terrific love story. For the people who complain because God Shaped Hole has "every cliche in the book", you need to realize that sometimes it's good to look past that and let yourself really feel the book. God Shaped Hole makes you feel really good, and it made me cry at the end. The relationship that Beatrice has with Jacob is beautiful, and if you look past the cliches you might see that.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing find
Review: I found this book when i decided i wanted to read something i had not seen on the bestseller shelf or heard a lot of hype about. From the very first page i was pulled into this modern love story. The intensity, the intimacy between the characters pulls the reader in from the very start. i did not want to stop reading as i found myself deeply involved in every emotion felt by jacob and trixie. i have reccomended this book to several friends who have found it as moving as i did.
Rating:
Summary: The Jeff Buckley Thing
Review: I just want to say to the person who didn't like this book because they think it lacks the correct reverence for Jeff Buckley's life --- you're not his only fan. Tiffanie DeBartolo was also deeply affected by his life and music and she has only the utmost respect for both. I know this because she told me. We're not friends, but I wrote to her when I realized the connection, and she told me that he was indeed very present in her mind when she wrote this book. Jacob Grace is not Jeff Buckley, and he is not intended to be. Tiffanie is an admirer of Jeff's and because of the impact he had on her, parts of him seep into her writing. He's on her mind. Just like he's on yours.
I love this book and its characters and I, too, love Jeff Buckley.
Rating:
Summary: The God-Shaped Hole in All of Us
Review: I read this book and then bought it for all of my friends. This book is about raw emotion and how amazing love can be and is! Funny thing is that I didn't see the ending coming. I thought she was going to end the relationship due to her own dysfunction. I didn't see it! I bawled at the end.
This book leaves you longing for your own Jacob or Trixie--if only we could have a dating service based on their attributes.
Rating:
Summary: opinion from a non-reader
Review: i want to start off by saying, that i HATE to read, and if you think you hate to read, trust me no matter who you are, i HATE it more than you do. that being said, i read this book within a 24hour period, staying up until 4am without realizing i've been sitting for so long. i do read slow because i barely read, never read for pleasure for that matter. and although people might think that my opinion is not valid because im not a reader, well...if you can take a non reader and turn him into going on amazon.com and ordering 3 books; it definitley says something about the book right? and i am a 19yr old male college student, i cried at the end, ya thats right i said it. and i wasnt creating a river, but my eyes got very teary. if it wasnt for this book, i must say i would still hate reading, now i cant wait till my books come in.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: I wanted to like this book. But I could not escape from Jeff Buckley while reading this prose- and that allision really detracted from DeBArtolo's story. If I head done my homework and read the reviews, I never would have picked it up. If you know anything about Jeff, you know this book, this "Jacob Grace" is less than his legend deserves.True- the writing was like listening to a pouty 16 year old, BUT it was about a young woman at odds with life in general and who takes too much for granted. We all know what that self-indulgent inner-monologue sounds like, and DeBartolo captured it well. Some of it is told so accurate to the indignance of Trixie (the lead gal) and to every gripe session I have had with my gal-pals that I almost peed myself from laughing. Some of it is merely annoying. The sarcasm expressed is remniscent of the early to mid nineties tongue-in-cheek literariness of the grunge-slacker. It was nostalgia for the time and the emotion that made me score this book as high as I did. The love story is secondary to the characters, for me at least, and makes the book all the more predictable. I did want to like this book. I would have given it 4 stars if I had not been so enthralled with Buckley for the past decade. But, my obsessions lie where they do. If you want to kill a few hours and have no idea of the genius of Jeff Buckley, by all means, pick this one up. It is a fun read and worth the 4 hours. Otherwise, you will only be left for a longing for someone whose life was gone too soon and the sick feeling that he was sold out as a romance.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: this book was wonderful, stellar character development. A must read book for anybody that is interested in the not so traditional love story romance. A modern contemporary must read.
Rating:
Summary: Saving Grace
Review: This is a love story. A true, dyed-in-the-wool love story for the twenty first century. This love story is depicted realistically, with the young woman protagonist making bad choices based on who she is and where she came from rather than a glossed-over, Hollywood version. For these reasons, this book rocks! Beatrice "Trixie" Jordan was only twelve when a carnival fortune teller predicted that she would meet her soulmate, only to lose him to tragedy. That portentious pronouncement follows Beatrice into adulthood. A jewelry-artist with her star on the rise, Beatrice meets Jordan Grace, a man two years her senior. It's immediately apparent that the pair's trajectories are following the same arc. And for the reader, an excellent tension-builder, for we know that this is Beatrice's doomed soul mate. Their lives together makes both of them more happy than they've ever been...and we know that a love like theirs happens rarely. That's why we want that long-ago fortune teller to be wrong, for their love to prevail over all. When a story is so well-written that it engages my emotions on an incredibly deep level, deep enough for me to get angry at Beatrice for being such a fool...I know the writer has me hooked. Tiffanie DeBartolo does an excellent job of making her characters believable and complex, with tough choices that ultimately affect their lives in profound ways. "God Shaped Hole" is one of those books that only comes along once a decade--but manages to remain in the hearts of anyone who is lucky enough to have read it. Buy this today!
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