Blue Diary

Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read
Review: I have never read anything by Alice Hoffman before "Blue Diary," and I have to say that, although I normally do not read this type of book, I really enjoyed it. My normal reading habits involve stuffy non-fiction :), so it was so nice to have a book perfect for a sunny weekend on the front porch.

The plot itself is a bit unbelievable, but Hoffman's style gets you so involved that it doesn't matter so much that the plotline isn't that plausible. She did a wonderful job of making the reader invested in the lives of her characters, and does an excellent job of narrating the passage of time via naturalistic sources (the weather, the gardens, etc). At the end of the story, I find myself leaving some of the characters with a bit of heartbreak, and some of them with a bit of sorrow mixed with a bit of joy, and others...well, wanting to give them a good kick in the pants.

Rating:
Summary: It Could Have Been a Heart
Review: "Blue Diary" is Alice Hoffman's fourteenth novel, so one would think she would know better than to create such cliched and cardboard-cutout characters as the ones that people this story. I love Hoffman's lyrical, and sometimes hyperbolic prose however, so I decided to give "Blue Diary" a chance.

The plot of this book is not bad, but it's nothing to email your friends about, either. After thirteen years of marriage, and the birth of a son, an unsuspecting, but perfect wife, Jorie Ford, is shocked when her perfect husband, Ethan is arrested for the long-ago rape and murder of a teenaged girl. Even more shocking to Jorie is the fact that "Ethan" is not really "Ethan." He is Byron Bell, a sociopathic murderer.

Although I found the plot of "Blue Diary" rather trite, it was the characters that really made me dislike the book. Jorie is simply "too perfect." She is the perfect homemaker, the perfect mother, the perfect gardener. And even all this sweet perfection and outward domestic bliss would have been acceptable if Hoffman had not made Jorie so maddeningly clueless.

Come on! How many wives would be so naive as to not even wonder when their longtime husband had never once revealed even a hint of his life before marriage? Husbands who didn't reveal where they were born, who their families and friends were, where they went to school, etc.? I can tell you one wife who wouldn't bat a perfectly mascared eyelash at all this secrecy...Jorie Ford. It was maddening. I wanted to slap the woman to wake her up from her dreamworld. I have a feeling a slap wouldn't have helped, though. Jorie Ford is a woman who sees the world and everyone in it in terms of black and white. There are the "good guys" and there are the "bad guys." And clearly, she and Ethan have been the "very good guys."

Even more irritating is that fact that Hoffman attempts to couch her treacle in "small-town" warmth and fuzziness. Her omnisicent narrator moves here and there in a haze of clueless wonder that is second only to Jorie's. There is suspense in this storyline, make no mistake about that, the plot is not the problem here, it is the characters, Jorie, in particular.

If Hoffman had written a book in which a character such as Jorie wanted to explore her need for domestic perfection, then this might have actually worked. But even after (finally) realizing she's married a murderer and a liar, Jorie Ford, aka Jorie Bell, feels no such need. She simply accepts the fact that she's perfect and a bad man did a bad thing...to her. She's the wronged victim who takes absolutely no personal responsibility for her lack of perception. It wasn't her fault her husband was so bad, she thinks. It wasn't her fault he was so good at hiding his past from her. Sure. We hear you, Jorie.

The final blow comes when Hoffman, steeped in sentimentality, gives the dead teenager a birthmark at the base of her spine in the shape of a butterfly. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been shaped like a heart.

Alice Hoffman usually writes more fanciful books and I think she's at her best in that realm. Her prose, even in this dreadful book, is lyrical and poetic and wonderful to read. Pretty prose, however, needs a little something more to back it up. If not a plot, then an original literary device, if not an original literary device, then a fascinating character, etc. Sadly, "Blue Diary" doesn't have any of these things. It's just treacle.

Rating:
Summary: Capriciousness, not justice
Review: Alice Hoffman is an incredible writer. Reading her prose is like snacking on strawberry shortcake. Each bite is rich, sweet, packed with unbelievable taste. I marvel at her abilities...

However, this book has such a bleak point of view. It deals with incredibly weighty issues of sin, forgiveness, revenge, punishment...and it does it without redemption, forgivness, resurrection or even justice. There is an air of capriciousness about Hoffman's universe. The main couple in this book are "punished" because they love each other too much, apparently. It's like a Greek tragedy without the fatal flaw. One keeps reading, pulled in by the skill of the author, hoping vainly that something good will come of this tragedy.

Some will protest that this is just like Real Life, and to some extent it is. However, most of us read fiction to escape Real Life, not to reaffirm it. We want stories that lift us from the muck and mire of the everyday...not plunge us neck deep into it.

Rating:
Summary: Romantic imagery but little realism
Review: Can we really ever know anyone completely? Even the most loving and intimate partner of 13 years? Jorie, the protagonist of this lush novel, finds out the answer to this question, but she might have asked it much earlier, maybe at the wedding when his side of the chapel was completely empty. Hoffman is a talented writer, and I kept reading, with special interest in the sharply defined adolescent characters, but Jorie's ignorance about her husband's past is unreal and puts a hole in the plot too big to ignore.

Rating:
Summary: America's Most Haunted
Review: Ethan is the pillar of the community--a great husband and father, an honest carpenter, a baseball coach who never yells at 11-year-olds who err on the field, and a volunteer fireman who is known for taking death-defying risks to save lives. So it comes as a great shock to everyone who knows him when he is arrested on suspicion of an old unsolved murder. Well--a shock to everyone but Kat, the 12-year-old neighbor who provided the anonymous tip that got him arrested. So begins Alice Hoffman's Blue Diary, which explores how catastrophically this single event haunts Ethan's family, friends, and neighbors.

Blue Diary is a book that would be a 5-star read against 95 percent of what's on the bookshelf. Hoffman's stiffest competition, however, is her own work and Blue Diary doesn't come up to the standard of Practical Magic, Turtle Moon or the River King. Hoffman's prose is always clear and her stories always interesting, but the lush poetic imagery of earlier novels is missing in this one. Jorie (Ethan's wife) and Kat (the neighbor kid) are well-drawn characters, but a bit transparent compared to the masterfully painted characters of Hoffman's other books.

Nonetheless, Blue Diary makes for an interesting read which poses the thought-provoking question: how well do you really know anyone? and the paranoia-provoking corollary: how can you be so sure?

Rating:
Summary: Good, But Not Up To Her Usual Standards....
Review: First of all, I want to say that I think Alice Hoffman is one of our generation's most talented authors. Her books are incredible, filled with insight, magic and beautiful settings. I truly think that her books will stand the test of time and enchant readers for years to come.

Now, that said, I was slightly disapointed with Blue Diary. I enjoyed it, but it didn't cast that magical spell on me the way her other books have. My favorite aspect of Alice Hoffman's books has always been the mystical qualities that her charcters seem to have, and I didn't find that in this book. The characters were likeable, but not exactly enthralling. The story was interesting, but it did not keep me up all night trying to finish it. I was impressed, again, by her writing skills, but I just felt the story was a little weak.

However, do not let this book hinder you from reading her other books. Try Practical Magic, The Probable Future and Turtle Moon. Alice Hoffman's talent is immense. She may not have hit a home run with Blue Diary, but she has an incredible history of fantastic books. Try one of those instead.

Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I have long looked to Alice Hoffman's novels for quick, enjoyable reads, and taken special pleasure in the hyperbolic descriptions that border on magic realism. Typically, she turns ordinary suburban or small-town America into a place where magic happens.

Blue Diary starts out that way, but becomes something else, as the ideal marriage presented in the novel's first chapter turns into a nightmare: the husband, Ethan, is accused of, and admits to, the rape and murder of a teenage girl 15 years before, and the wife, Jorie, has to determine whether his claim that he's not the same person as that murderer-rapist anymore--that he remains the wonderful guy she fell in love with--has any meaning.

By focusing at first on their happy marriage, and the Ethan's heroic role in the town's life (as a volunteer fireman, he has repeatedly saved his neighbors' lives at risk to his own), Hoffman puts us in the same position as his adoring Jorie: we don't know how to reconcile the past with the present. As the story goes on, we learn (with Jorie) more about the brutality and sad legacy of the crime, as well as how Ethan--not so admirably--copes with his new circumstances.

This is a story that challenges your ideas about whether people can really change, how responsible we are for past behavior, and what it means to repent. At the same time, it remains an enjoyable and quick read.

Rating:
Summary: Forgiveness is Sometimes Impossible.
Review: In Blue Diary, the Ford's were one healthy, prosperous family. Ethan and Jorie were so happily married, and had a son Collie. Nothing could separate them, at least not as long as the secret stayed hidden-and it was a bad one.

When it came on television that Ethan was wanted for a murder many years ago, Collie's friend Katie was the first to see it. She knew it was Ethan they were showing, though they were naming another man's name. But Katie proceeded to turn Ethan in anyway, reporting that she had seen him, and where he was. The next thing we know, the authorities were at the door taking Ethan away for a murder committed years ago.

Jorie is totally devastated, and all of their lives are turned upside down by the whole thing. When Ethan admits to the whole thing, Jorie has to find out for herself exactly what happens. So when she visits the area where it happened, she goes to the library and gets the cold hard facts of the case. Jorie finds the man who is the brother of the sister he lost so many years ago, and the poor man never recovered from the terrible shock of it. He gives Jorie the diary of his sister as a reminder of what Ethan did. After that, Jorie never will forgive her husband for all of the betrayals. It's simply too late to turn back.

The book was really good overall I thought. The only part that could have been done much better was the ending.

Rating:
Summary: Is this all there is to it?
Review: In movies, it's called a "chick flick", a not very kind term to describe a style that is marketed to women, and probably only enjoyed by women. Fair enough, certainly there are movies marketed to men, and a lot them are also garbage. "Chick" and "Flick" rhyme. So what does one call a novel in the same category? I ask because Blue Diary, by Alice Hoffman, certainly qualifies.

The main problem, though, is that there isn't that much of a story to Blue Diary. Let's see, a man that everyone likes is arrested for an old crime. Turns out he lived under an assumed name all this time, hidden away in a small town somewhere. It's not a mystery story, since he confesses everything early on. It's not really any story after that.

There's the wife, wondering how to react. The son, upset and withdrawn. The wife's best friend, supportive of whatever the wife decides. The son's pseudo girlfriend, who tries to be comforting. And then what? And then nothing. The story is just spinning its wheels for most of the book. A few things stand out, like when the wife goes to visit the family of the murder victim. That read true, more or less.

Other than the attempt to make this a character study, and failing, there's the matter of how the town reacts. This takes place in a nice little Massachusetts hamlet where everybody knows everyone, so naturally everyone has an opinion. What I don't understand here is, exactly which planet does this version of small town America reside on? I ask because this is specifically not a mystery. Everyone knows the guy is guilty of a bloody rape and murder of a teenaged girl. So why, exactly, does most of the town rally to his defense? Why do they set up a defense fund and literally hold rallies for him? Because he's turned his life around? Because he deserves a second chance? Sorry, but those are arguments that might sound natural coming from opponents of the judicial system, psychologists, and various muddle headed activists, but small town America? How many rural towns do you know that rally around vicious criminals in this way? Even if the crime took place in a different small town in another state, this sort of behavior does not strike me as being even remotely believable in that setting. So, besides their behavior being offensive, which a novel has every right to portray, it is also fake, and that's a big problem.

To summarize, the book is empty. The dialogue is flat and uninspired. The characters are cardboard cutouts. The plot is almost non-existent. And it's boring. There's just nothing here to recommend itself.

Rating:
Summary: Romantic imagery but little realism
Review: Reading one of Hoffman's books is indeed like stepping into a painting. Although you "read" her books you also soar through and above them. I really loved this book, and couldn't put it down. She writes of such painful stuff and yet the humanity of it all is so real, you can't help but feel clean afterwards. You'll be thinking about human nature, forgiveness and the ability of time to change all of us long after you're done reading.