A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries

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Summary: A compelling story of a childhood in France
Review: A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries is based on the author's journeys through childhood and her early adult life. It is a compelling story of life, love and loneliness. The novel is basically about the relationship the main character Charlotte-Anne (also known as Channe) had with her father and how it changed throughout her childhood and maturity. Channe is very close to her father throughout her early childhood. As she becomes a teenager they begin to drift apart. But after an unfortunate turn of events the bond is tightened between them.
From the first chapter the reader is put inside the mind of five-year-old child to see the world through her eyes and to experience things the way she experienced them. The reader gets pulled into the book from the very beginning through the author's use of vivid description and specific details when Charlotte-Anne's parents adopt a five-year-old son. Charlotte-Anne has to learn to cope with not being the only child. Channe has a very temperamental personality; one moment she loves him the next she can't stop being mad at him. The book also follows her relationship with her brother and how they learn to love and respect each other no matter how impossible it seems. From her brother's adoption to their move from France to America Charlotte-Anne tries her best to love life and live it the best she knows how.
I really enjoyed reading this book because it is written from the perspective of a child and the book illustrates beautifully the confusion that children go through.

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Summary: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman
Review: Kaylie Jones is one of the best young writers in the world today. A Soldier's Daughter is a novel that I can recommend to everyone -- particularly anyone who's ever lost a father, a friend, a home. At times sad, often humorous, always honest -- deserving of a National Book Award nomination.

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Summary: Fabulous New Edition
Review: This new Akashic edition adds a whole new layer to this wonderful novel. The introduction alludes to the making of the Merchant-Ivory film, and the author's experiences on the set. Also, she delves into the differences between memoir and fiction writing, and why this novel so clearly is a novel and not a memoir. The new chapter, "Mother's Day," which stands alone as a short story -- as all of these chapter do and were surely meant to -- describes the narrator Channe's troubled and deeply ambivalent relationship with her mother. I always felt the mother was a little absent from this novel. Now she's not! Bravo to Akashic for reprinting this American classic.