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Summary: DS at her best
Review: I really enjoyed this DS novel. But...then I love women that overcome. That have integrity, are courageous and value life even with it's trials. This was a quick read, worth the effort and a novel I would recommend. Especially for a day at the beach or mountains.
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Summary: Danielle Steel Gets Better Everytime
Review: I really like this novel. I haven't read a book this moving since A Long Road Home. She really put her heart and soul in this one. I love the part in the book about wives meeting. I like fact she didn't believe her right away that was realistic. Great Job
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Summary: Don't take this leap
Review: I use to be a huge Danielle Steel fan, adoring her books such as The Ring, Message from Nam, Wanderlust, etc. I stopped reading her books after reading The Ranch. The worst book I ever read. I thought I'd give her one more try by reading Leap of Faith. She's clearly only in it for the money now - cranking out garbage. Leap of Faith was too predictable with shallow, uninteresting characters. I won't be wasting my time on her books again.
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Summary: A pleasant, and short read
Review: I was really impressed by this latest book by Danielle Steel. It was shorter, but the characters were very well developed and the storyline progressed at a pace that nothing seemed to be left out. I hadn't been able to read the last 2 books by Ms Steel for one reason or another, and was very happy with this one!
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Summary: no faith for leap of faith
Review: if the author's name weren't danielle steel, the manuscript would have been tossed in the circular file by any/all publishers. what a waste of time!!
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Summary: Synopsis got published!
Review: Inverting the novel-writing wisdom of "show-don't-tell," it appears Ms. Steele sent off a synopsis for Leap of Faith to her publisher and the publisher thought it was a finished book and published it. Waste of time; waste of money.
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Summary: Review: Danielle Steel, Leap of Faith
Review: It took me approximately 70 minutes to read Leap of Faith by Danielle Steel. It might have taken five or ten minutes less if I hadn't been reading in bed, if the light was better, if my neck hadn't kept getting stiff so that I had to shift position every few minutes.After a chapter or two, I thought perhaps I should read two Steel books, on the chance I'd inadvertently picked up one that had been published by accident. But then after four or five chapters, I decided I couldn't read another if my life depended on it. By the time I got to the last page, this was my thought: I can't review this book. There's nothing to review. I just spent 70 minutes of my life reading nothing. I turned the light out and went to sleep. By morning, my thinking had altered. For one thing, I'd taken this review on willingly. In fact, I'd actually thought it was a good idea, although at that point I'd never read Steel, so what did I know? Besides, there was nothing ready to put in its place. So here goes. The plot: Eleven-year-old Marie-Ange, blue-eyed and golden-curled, lives in France. She is adored by her handsome parents and gently teased but much loved by her older brother. She spends her days in the apple orchard, day-dreaming, climbing trees, dirtying her Paris-bought frocks. Life is idyllic. But the monster is at the door. You can hear him breathing, smell his breath. Marie-Ange waves goodbye as her parents and her brother John drive off, pathetically unaware that she is also waving goodbye to the life she's always known. Orphaned, she is sent off to live in Iowa with a cold, unfeeling aunt who forces early-morning barn chores and provides meager meals. Hungry, badly-dressed, and love-starved, Marie-Ange retains her sweetness. She makes one friend, freckle-faced, red-haired Billy, who adores her. At 18, Marie-Ange inherits 30 million dollars. She kisses Billy good-bye and flies off to Paris, where she meets the new owner of her former Chateau, a count. They marry, have two children, he spends her money. Then he sets the house on fire and tries to burn her up in it. His plan fails and the gendarmes cart him away. Marie-Ange calls Billy. End of plot. This is what I know about Danielle Steel: She has sold close to 500 million copies of the approximately 50 to 60 books she's written. Perhaps with the exception of Harold Bloom, everyone recognizes her name. It's hard not to recognize it because it's everywhere. All of which means there's something going on here. I'm just having trouble figuring out what it is. I saw her interviewed once, and she seems like a perfectly intelligent, well-spoken woman. I think she has lots of children. Because of her extreme writing success, she's wealthy. I know she's experienced the same vagaries of life as the rest of us because the interview centered on her son's depression and death. This is what I know about writing: Writing is evocation. Writing is showing, not telling. Writing is rendering. Writing is trying your darndest to get your reader to disappear the page the words are printed on and enter the life beyond that page. According to what I know about writing, Steel has it all wrong. She has it inside out, upside down, backwards, and all a jumble. Nothing is evoked. She never shows, only tells. She doesn't render. And she doesn't try one little bit to ever make you forget you're reading a book. Her plot is simplistic and unbelievable; her characters are barely one-dimensional; and her use of language is so clichéd that I found myself playing a game. I could always, not almost always, but always predict the words that were to finish a sentence before I turned the page and actually read them. So how has Danielle Steel become one of the most popular and widely read authors on the planet? Perhaps it has something to do with My Antonia. Bear with me. I read Willa Cather's My Antonia for the first time in Junior High School. I liked it. At least I liked it until I got near the end. Then I didn't like it. Antonia had been the sort of girl I wanted to be. Pretty. Vivacious. Outgoing. She loved pretty clothes and dancing. She was attractive to boys. Especially attractive to Jim. But then the story went wrong. Jim and Antonia went separate ways. And after twenty years had passed and Jim and Antonia were finally reunited, she'd become old before her time, "...a stalwart, brown woman, flat-chested, her curly brown hair a little grizzled." And practically toothless, to boot. I was crushed. I hated what she'd become. It ruined the book for me. Why would anyone write such a miserable ending? But I was only 14. I re-read My Antonia in my thirties. It had the same ending. But this time I was moved not by what she'd lost, but by what she'd kept and what she'd gained. A husband and children she loved and who loved her. The same hunger for life despite the fact she'd lived hard and poor. All her values in the right place. Antonia had triumphed. Life had beaten her, but only marginally. Only on the outside. I suspect that in Danielle Steel's version, Jim and Antonia would have ended up together after a hundred pages apart and after an attempted murder or two. Oh, and Antonia would have been as lovely at 40 as she was at 20. Plus she would have inherited 30 or 40 million dollars somewhere along the line. At 14, I would have been so happy with that ending. But I'm not 14 anymore, so here's what I think: Danielle Steel should preface all her books with Once Upon a Time, just so there's no confusion in anyone's mind about what it is she's doing. She shouldn't dictate her books. It's too easy to forget that you've already said the same thing seven or eight times. She should avoid telephone conversations because people can't see each other, and you have to write stupid things like: "So will I," he said, smiling, and looking more boyish than ever, although she couldn't see him. She should avoid having a wife say about a husband who has just tried to burn her alive: "...But he scared the hell out of me the way he spent money.
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Summary: A Good Book To Spend The Afternoon Reading!
Review: Leap Of Faith by 'The Queen Of Print' is a good book to get lost in for an afternoon. Not quite what I had expected from 'the queen of print', but none-the-less, a solid story. Sort've a farytale turned nightmare, An interesting premise that adds to the enjoyment of the story plot.
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Summary: DS does it again!!!
Review: Leap of Faith is a great read. Danielle Steel has written a wonderful book. The main character, Marie-Ange, is likeable from page one. The reader is guaranteed to feel her joy and pain as she feels them. Marie-Ange is faced with tragedy at the young age of 11. She is forced to leave her home country and live with a relative who doesn't really show any emotion except hate, of everyone and everything. I literally had tears in my eyes as I read of the horrible things that happened to Marie-Ange when she went to live with her aunt. Hurrah for Billy. He was definitely a blessing from the first meeting between him and Marie-Ange. This book reminded me of the earlier Danielle Steel books. It seems as if some of her more recent works were not quite as emotional and interesting as her older works. Leap of Faith is an excellent book. It has a good story line and moves at a good pace. The reader doesn't have time to get bored. I felt like I couldn't read this book fast enough. Even though it is a short 202 pages it is packed full of all the ingredients that make a DS book good to read. Definitely a book that you'll want to read now and again in a few months or years. This is a lasting DS novel. :)
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Summary: Solid Danielle Steel.
Review: Leap of Faith is an enjoyable story split between the cosmopolitan France, and down-home Iowa. It is a fast-paced well-written jaunt into the life of a young woman, Marie-Ange. Her life is turned upside down by a tragic car crash, and she is sent to live with her aunt in Iowa. Unfamiliar with the midwest, Marie-Ange has much to adjust to. Her aunt's eccentricities make life no easier for her. However, Marie-Ange's story does not end with her upheaval as a child. The story follows her life and the people she meets along the way, good and bad. It becomes an engaging story of a young woman and the trials of her life. If you enjoy Danielle Steel you will certainly enjoy this book as well. It is well-written, engaging, and interesting. It will leave you guessing, and keep you reading with the roller-coaster ride of a story it offers... Enjoy!
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