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Summary: A pleasant surprise!
Review: When on vacation at Glacier National Park, I ran out of reading materials and picked up a copy of this book, expecting it to provide some pleasant times sitting by the fireplace at the lodge. From the very beginning, I found it captivating. The first chapter hooks you and the rest of the book reels you in. It uses a clever series of flashbacks, moving from the reflections of an elderly man living in a nursing home to the experiences of trench warfare in WWI to a remembrance ceremony ten years after the war. As I read the book, I found it causing me to do serious reflection about my own life and our purpose on the planet. I am an avid reader and would count this among the half-dozen or so best books I've read in 53 years.
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Summary: A love story crossing generations...
Review: Jonathan Hull's Losing Julia may be the tearjerker of the decade. World War I vet Patrick Delaney's 'journal' describes the three most important times in his life: fighting the war in France, falling in love and adventures as an 81 year old in a nursing home. On the German front, Patrick's best, Daniel, is killed, leaving behind a beautiful girlfriend, Julia, and daughter, Robin. Ten years following the war, Patrick and family visit the battlefield, and he finally meets Julia. They fall in love despite Patrick's marriage to Charlotte and both must make decisions about the future. Hull brilliantly captures the three different time periods and even three different genres. The war scenes were vivid and realistic, the love scenes romantic and thrilling and the nursing home days humorous and sentimental. I am so excited to have found a new author to enjoy!
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Summary: GREAT BOOK!! It is not a romance but a life story.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. As a military nurse, I see many patients that have been in wars and Mr Hull pegged the character on the first try. This book has the potential to become a best seller. The story is about the life of an ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life. I had a hard time putting it down because I wanted to see what Patrick would say next about life. So many times I wondered where Mr Hull got the insight into life of an old man. If his next book is this good he will really have a great career.
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Summary: Perhaps the best novel I've ever read
Review: This book involved me in a way no other book has done. I laughed, I cried, and I wondered at how so young an author could have such insight into the human condition. I have never read a better description of the problems brought on by aging. Nor have I ever read a more poignant love story or such realistic depictions of the horrors of war, both mental and physical. Hull is going places. I anxiously await his next work. Jon C. Gilbert
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Summary: Tell a friend- wonderful book!
Review: I read constantly and various, but it has been a long time since I read a book I cherished. You know there are those books that you cherish every word up till the end. The books you absorb and hold tight, with eyes searching, rushing to see what happens, yet slowly savoring, not wanting it to end. This is that kind of book. One of those books you tell all your friends about. The kind of book that becomes part of your day. The book you think about during the day until you can get back to reading it. Don't be fooled by the title or cover. It is not just a "romance" per se, it is a book of life, and love, and all things great; albeit them good or bad. This is a book for men and women. There are many writers who spin entertaining, fun, even insightful books but few get the official badge of "good writer". Jonathan Hull achieves that honor and I can't wait to read more. Read this one. You will learn from and love Patrick Delaney.
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Summary: Losing Julia
Review: I knew when I started to read this book that I'd never want it to end. Each part, WW1, ten years later, and the aging Patrick, made me think so much about what the author was saying, that I'd drift off with thoughts of my own about what Jonathan Hull had written. The way the author describes stages in old age, the funny, the sad, all made me enjoy this book so much. I also cried - something I haven't done in years while reading a book. I would have to say this is the BEST book I've read in a long, long time. I hope Mr. Hull is busy writing his next book, as I will be so looking forward to reading it.
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Summary: Destiny, Sadness, Choices
Review: I've read some of the other reviews for this book and I agree wholeheartedly with them. I read the paperback version. This is a book I intend recommending to my friends. This is a story that is set in three time periods. The novels "present" is set in 1981 when the main protagonist of the story, Patrick Delaney, is 81, retired and tired and living in an old folks home. He's fighting to give a damn about life, like he'd done when he was a younger man in the trenches of France in World War One, which is where a second part of the novel is set. Most of his day is spent in the retirement home remembering better times -- the best, of course, being the time he spent with the fiance of the best friend he'd ever had, Daniel, whom he'd met in France and who dies in no-man's-land one day. Daniel's fiance and mother of his soon-to-be-born child, Julia, is a breathtaking creature who is much the same as Daniel and Patrick both... and that is how she falls in love with them. This is a novel of pain, of physical death and spiritual death, of searching for God -- and sometimes finding him but mostly not finding him. God is in the silences as well as the battlefields... but sometimes we find him in someone's eyes and arms and other limbs. We get entangled looking for God in the most unlikeliest of places and romantic love with another person is what we often times settle for. And that's enough for Patrick.
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Summary: Patrick and Daniel
Review: This book is great!! I don't usually care for stories that keep switching time periods, but while reading I kept thinking what a great movie it would make. I enjoyed Patrick's keen and witty insights into senior's lives especially. I acutally laughed out loud at some of his descriptions. It wasn't entirely devoted to WWI scenes or romance. If it had been strictly romance I wouldn't have read it. I hope Mr. Hull is working on another book. I wouldn't hesitate to read another by him. Excellent read.
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Summary: thank you, jonathan hull
Review: losing julia ... where do i start - this ranks up there with my all time favorite books, and not one that will be lost in the carnage of my attic. i will always keep it in reaching distance. thank you, jonathan hull
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Summary: Losing Julia
Review: Losing Julia, a story about a World War I veteran in 1918 and his struggles to overcome recollections of a horrible war, a friend's loss and memories that will haunt him throughout his life. It is a pungent story that captures the reader and pulls them through 3 different time periods in the main character, Patrick Delaney's life. Patrick Delaney's best friend Daniel, in the war, is killed on a battlefield in France. Daniel shared with Patrick, love letters he had received from his girlfriend, sharing memories of a perfect woman he always talked about. Patrick sets out on a journey to find Julia. Not knowing her last name, was a fight for Patrick to find her, but finally at the veteran's memorial he saw her. The love of his life, his best friend, the most beautiful woman her had ever met. The way her silk hair hung on he shoulders, and the way she held her cigarette and used the touch of her hands to talk, and the way she always smiled no matter what the circumstance. Julia was by far the most stunning woman he had ever set his eyes on. She wore no makeup and dressed plainly but still gorgeous. Being a painter, she would sit on the hillside with Patrick for hours painting non stop. "She changed into a white shirt and burgundy pants, while her hair was pulled back into a bun and she wore a simple pair of hop earrings. I had to keep from staring at the gentle curves of her hips, which suggested all sorts of other perfect proportions. Patrick was a standard looking man. Not unattractive, not too short, with a slight but sinewy build, he proposed fair skin, hazel eyes, and a good hairline. "I had good teeth too, even though they remained largely hidden in my smallish mouth." He was an average looking man with no single feature that categorized him into a better than average-looking crowd. His hair was light brown and disorderly. Patrick hated being average since none of the woman who appeared to him were average. Being timid and foreign to confidence, he took to reading books, which he found himself misplaced in another land. The captivating title Losing Julia is almost enough to catch the reader's eye. Patrick Delaney of 81 tells his tale from a nursing home exactly the way he remembers it. The way he talks about Julia is enough to make you feel as if you were right along side her, like standing in the sand at the ocean you can smell the ocean air, he tells about Julia with such description. You can almost smell her hair. It's a story of loss of loved ones and memoirs that will last forever. The author of this book, Jonathan Hull, had spent ten years at Time Magazine, serving as a bureau chief from 1988 to 1991. He has won many impressive awards. He now enjoys composing fiction full time. Living with his wife and two children in Marin County, Losing Julia is the first book he has ever written and a wonderful book at that. I felt that this book was very heartwarming and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys love stories. This book entails a little bit of everything, the past the present and the future and the historic background of Patrick Delaney is incredible. Living their lives day by day they weren't sure what the future would hold for them. Losing Julia is a tale of two hearts coming together in friendship, desire, love and destiny. (598)
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