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Summary: Why I love Barbara Kingsolver
Review: Wow. Some of you out there may have only been introduced to Kingsolver with the Poisonwood Bible. An important book, but not a happy one. I like my fiction to have some happiness in it. If I wanted absolute misery, I'd turn on the news. That's why I love this book. I'm not one to give away the plot, but let's just say that our protagonist is presented with a number of challenges. Her biggest challenge is doing something selfless to help somebody else. If you want to renew your faith in humanity, I strongly suggest this book. I'd also suggest Prodigal Summer (also Kingsolver), We are in Love (Harry Connick, Jr.), Practical Magic (Alice Hoffman), any of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels (because if you can have her life and still be upbeat, that's spirit), a web musician named Anna Madorsky, and The Absence of Nectar (I've forgotten the author's name, but it's an amazing book).
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Summary: The Bean Tree Review
Review: Randy The Reviewer:It's all about a girl named Taylor. She leaves her hometown in Kentucky.Leaving because she wants a better life. She leaves in a 1955 Volkswagen. Ending up in Tucson ,Arizona.On the way she ends up with a indian girl named Turtle.Taylor ended up adopting and then almost taken away by the state in Arizona.She gave up and gave custody to her best friends that had a good relationship with Turtle.Turtle was from the Cherokee nation in Oklahoma and taken back to try to find Turtles parents. In Tucson she gets settled in a apartment.later on she looses her relationship with Turtle and Taylors friends. This book is realy sad at some times.I think this is a good book baecause There is text that makes you to want to read further into the book. This is a good fiction book.
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Summary: A Good Sense of Reality
Review: This book about a small town girl traveling to Arizona has a good moral to it. Taylor leaves Pittman and travels across america. She's avoiding the stereotype of all the girls getting pregnant at a young age. Taylor doesn't want children. She ends up stopping in Oklahoma and leaves with a young girl.
She continues on to Arizona, where she meets Mattie, the owner of Jesus is Lord Used Tires. Mattie gives Taylor and Turtle (the young girl given to Taylor in OK)a place to stay for the night. Taylor looks in the paper for places for rent. She answers a personal for a single woman, Lou Ann, who has a baby boy. taylor and Lou Ann share a home and become best friends.
Taylor also meets an immigrant couple, Estevan and Esperanza, through Mattie. Who need a new place to live before they are found in Arizona.
In the end Taylor learns a lesson about family. You aren't always a blood relative, adopted, or even married to someone to be considered a family.
This book is well written and many women can relate to Taylor. The moral is also a great lesson.
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Summary: Funny yet Serious
Review: Kingsolver's voice permeates throughout this brilliant work. Though funny and lighthearted, it is a book with a subtly serious message...
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Summary: Not the Poisonwood Bible
Review: I think most people start reading Kingsolver with The Poisonwood Bible.....I liked it, but it wasn't something I'd rave about. So when someone told me to try The Bean Trees, I was reluctant. However, all other Kingsolver books are NOTHING like Poisonwood. Her writing style is completely different.The Bean Trees is an excellent "story" book. Easy to read, easy to get in to and an excellent story.
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Summary: More fun than Poisonwood but still very deep
Review: If you got a little tired reading the Poisonwood Bible, as I did, you'll be pleasantly surprised by this book. Don't get me wrong-- I really enjoyed Poisonwood, with its mix of engaging female narrators and insight into a foreign culture and history... this book has some of the same elements. Taylor, formerly known as Marietta, is a tough, smart, brash Southern gal with a great turn of phrase. She leaves Kentucky in a beat-up old car, driving West, and along the way, is literally handed a small Indian girl. She ends up caring for the girl, and settling in Tucson. There she moves in with another displaced Kentuckian (like Poisonwood, we get a few chapters from another character's pov, but unlike that book, most of the time we stay with Taylor) and finds a job in a bodyshop. There she meets some Guatamalan refugees... without giving any more away I will say that I had never given any thought to the plight of Guatamalan refugees, but the way Kingsolver drew them into the plot, quietly and gently, I ended up in tears more than once. There is a scene towards the end that truly had me bawling. I really enjoyed this book-- it was a fast read, hard to put down-- but it had substance, too. It wasn't just another light, fun, "Southern woman finds herself" sort of novel-- it had real depth, addressing issues of motherhood, family and connections-- as well as the specific issue of refugees (how can a person be "illegal" a person can be good or bad, but illegal? is typical of Taylor's thoughts-- and it made me stop and think, too). Highly recommended!
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Summary: The Bean Trees
Review: I couldn't put this book down. I haven't read a book like that in a long time! I definitly recomend!
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Summary: The Bean Trees good but it isn't the greatest.
Review: A huge portion of the impact this book makes on the reader depends on the person's age and life experiences. The book's main character, Taylor Greer is a young lady who grows up determined not to become a mother and suddenly finds herself in possession of a baby girl. This book might be more or less appealing to a reader who has more or less things in common with the main character. I, personally, have not had much experience in child care which,influenced my decision to give this novel a three star rating. The book is averagely written, lacking emotional power in some areas. For instance, when Taylor is suddenly left with a child, her reactions are not appropriately dramatic. In fact, they are rather simple as Taylor asks the child's keeper, "Is... this your kid?" A good thing about this novel is its setting. The fact that Taylor has grown up in Kentucky powerfully influences the plot. Young women in Kentucky are far more likely to get pregnant than those in elsewhere.
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Summary: Book Club Book
Review: We had this book for our book club and it was a good book to review with a bunch of people. It's a great book to discuss character development. I'm now reading Pigs in Heaven, the next book about Turtle, Taylor and the gang.
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Summary: Heart warming
Review: Setting: From a small southern town where everybody knows everybody else's business to the bustle of Arizona's Tucson with a road trip in between. Characters: Taylor Greer- a young woman trying to find out who she is by traveling as far as she can go. Mattie - the heart of an unseen world with a heart the size of the world. Lou Ann - A step between laughter and heartbreak. She has a child and a failed marriage. Turtle - soft spoken child of the world finds herself in a loving home while clinging to the past in ways that no one can understand. Plot: Not to get pregnant out of high school was Taylor's first goal. Successful with that, as soon as she could she left town to see how far she could go. On the way a child was given to he and her life changed. When her tire lost its usefulness she stopped at Jesus is Lord Used Tires to get it fixed. There she met Mattie. Tucson became the place where Taylor hung her hat. Mattie was successful in enchanting her with a job, so Taylor had to find a place to live. After many attempts she found herself in the house of Lou Ann. The two of them had an uncanny similarity in their pasts and became fast friends. The three women mixed in the charms of the Wild West and childcare, all pull together for the best of humanity. Techniques: Kingslover uses the chapters to flash between the lives of Taylor and Lou Ann. She shows what happens to people whose separate lives become one. Irony is the last player in the book tying together the bond between Taylor and Turtle. Themes: Kingsolver's characters are bold. They each have a presence that seems over bearing on it's own, but subtle together. It is the common kindness that people have that runs through this book. The strength and the frailty that each human has, and the love that will go way out of ones way to help another person is the beauty of the human existence. Quotes:
Taylor -The wisteria vines on their own would just barely get by, is how I explained it to Turtle, but put them together with rhizobia and they make miracles
Taylor -There would come a time when she would just wave at the sight of passing grave stones and quietly say, "Bye, bye."
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