Rating: 
Summary: WONDERFUL!!!
Review: This book is the first book in a long time (and I am reading 2-3 books at a time) that captured me and kept me enthralled throughout the whole book, not wanting it to end. I was taken up with the little girl's gumption, bravery and adventure and felt like I was right there with her the whole time waiting and wondering what she was going to do next and where she was going to take me next. Now that this is over for her I am left wondering what she is doing now and what she is getting involved in now. I miss her
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable book
Review: This is perhaps Grimes' entrance into true literary writing. It is enormously well written, beautiful inspired, etheral in its lavish detail. A very hard book to forget. It is fiction made real, a very hard thing to do for any writer. Brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book that fiction readers may miss in mystery sect
Review: This is the second of Martha Grimes books which depart from her usual fun English mystery format and I think it is much more successful than the first attempt.
This book tells the story of a 12 year old girl living with her Mother in a run-down resort hotel who becomes obsessed with understanding why a girl her age drowned in the lake in front of their property 40 years ago.
It is really a great coming of age story about a young girl who has been emotionally abandoned by her family and who needs find a place for herself and understand that sometimes one person in a family may become the family scapegoat for reasons they can't control. You will love the main character. She is spunky and intelligent and brave.
This book is usually cataloged in the mystery section but is really just good fiction and shouldn't be overlooked by those people who say "I don't read mysteries".
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book that fiction readers may miss in mystery sect
Review: This is the second of Martha Grimes books which depart from her usual fun English mystery format and I think it is much more successful than the first attempt.This book tells the story of a 12 year old girl living with her Mother in a run-down resort hotel who becomes obsessed with understanding why a girl her age drowned in the lake in front of their property 40 years ago. It is really a great coming of age story about a young girl who has been emotionally abandoned by her family and who needs find a place for herself and understand that sometimes one person in a family may become the family scapegoat for reasons they can't control. You will love the main character. She is spunky and intelligent and brave. This book is usually cataloged in the mystery section but is really just good fiction and shouldn't be overlooked by those people who say "I don't read mysteries".
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read
Review: This is--without a doubt--my all-time favorite book. I love it!Our 12 year-old heroine (whose name is not revealed until the very end of the book) has a hard life. What is perhaps one of the more brilliant aspects of the book, is that she honestly doesn't realize how hard her life is. Working 3 meals a day, 7 days a week as a waitress (something that an adult would never stand for), she is ignored by most adults and tormented by the closest thing she has to a contemporary: the awful Regina Jane Davidow. Of course, one of the other brilliant points of the book is that her life isn't nearly as miserable as she believes it to be, either. Her only friends are Maude, the waitress, and Sam, the sheriff (featured characters in the like-wise brilliant "End of the Pier"). But even Maude and Sam can't follow her when she delves into the past, back into a 40 year-old death which haunts her thoughts. What exactly did happen to Mary Evelyn Devereau? What ever became of Ben Queen? Who is the mysterious "Girl" who keeps appearing and disappearing? Most of all--how can one little girl put to rest the ghosts of another child who died nearly 30 years before she was born? From the first line of Chapter 2, you know this is going to be a good book. "My mother was not a Paradise." Isn't that the most perfect line you've ever read? I only wish it were the first line of the entire book. Ms. Grimes is beyond a doubt one of the most talented fiction writers (ignore the whole "mystery" genre--this woman can WRITE) of our generation. I only wish she had an editor who would guide her a little more. Sometimes she does stray from her characters a bit. But all things considered, it is very hard to find fault with a masterpiece such as this.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read
Review: This is--without a doubt--my all-time favorite book. I love it! Our 12 year-old heroine (whose name is not revealed until the very end of the book) has a hard life. What is perhaps one of the more brilliant aspects of the book, is that she honestly doesn't realize how hard her life is. Working 3 meals a day, 7 days a week as a waitress (something that an adult would never stand for), she is ignored by most adults and tormented by the closest thing she has to a contemporary: the awful Regina Jane Davidow. Of course, one of the other brilliant points of the book is that her life isn't nearly as miserable as she believes it to be, either. Her only friends are Maude, the waitress, and Sam, the sheriff (featured characters in the like-wise brilliant "End of the Pier"). But even Maude and Sam can't follow her when she delves into the past, back into a 40 year-old death which haunts her thoughts. What exactly did happen to Mary Evelyn Devereau? What ever became of Ben Queen? Who is the mysterious "Girl" who keeps appearing and disappearing? Most of all--how can one little girl put to rest the ghosts of another child who died nearly 30 years before she was born? From the first line of Chapter 2, you know this is going to be a good book. "My mother was not a Paradise." Isn't that the most perfect line you've ever read? I only wish it were the first line of the entire book. Ms. Grimes is beyond a doubt one of the most talented fiction writers (ignore the whole "mystery" genre--this woman can WRITE) of our generation. I only wish she had an editor who would guide her a little more. Sometimes she does stray from her characters a bit. But all things considered, it is very hard to find fault with a masterpiece such as this.
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