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Summary: Loving and amazing Book.
Review: This book is a good young adult book teaching a lesson, while also giving enjoyment. alice Hoffman's insetting first-person view exposes the characters feellings and enviroment to the reader. A Book that tells a story in only a few chapters, not giving the reader the abillity to put the book down for its amazing poeitic trance. It is a sure to read book.
-Kimsoo
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Summary: Beautiful language, interesting story, powerful insight
Review: A superb story for parents & teens to share, Green Angel follows 15-year-old Green as she struggles to survive on her own in the aftermath of a terrible disaster.
Bringing to mind the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, Green watches as the city over the river burns and worries about her family who is there selling vegetables at market. As she realizes that they will not be returning home she must decide how to survive on her own. Her lovely green world is ruined by the fire's aftermath and thus Green renames herself, Ash. Ash spends evenings tattooing her body with roses and thorns; her strange new world is shrouded in darkness, both physical and emotional.
Green's struggle to define herself in the face of change is a journey we will all recognize but Hoffman has also shown us all of humanity - fearing, mourning, angering, healing.
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Summary: Wonderful lyrical Hoffman aimed at a younger crowd...
Review: A young adult novel by an author I truly admire, I really liked this very (very) short tale. A rather vague disaster strikes a city (one is left with the notion that it was a large bombing of some sort), and a girl's family is left for dead. This girl, Green, stayed home, didn't say a proper goodbye that day, and suffers a truly evocative survivor's guilt.
We see Green's view through smudged eyes, and as she withdraws into a cocoon of non-emotion, she tattooes herself with black vines, black roses, black bats, shears her hair short, and turns inward. As she encounters other survivors, and moves toward healing, Hoffman's intense prose style really shines through with the emotionality of all the characters.
Stirring work - I know I would have loved it as a younger reader, and even as an adult, I quite enjoyed it, despite it being so very brief.
'Nathan
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Summary: Hoffman's Special Magic
Review: Although intended for the YA market, this book will appeal to anyone who is a fan of lovely, poetic writing infused with magic.Most of Hoffman's adult novels contain a certain amount of magical realism, and in "Green Angel", she tells a story that is totally magical. Maybe she felt she could let go for the YA audience more so than for adults. Well, I am one adult who will tell you that I am glad to have read this. I intend to pass it along to my 12 year old niece and then discuss it with her. I actually read this book twice: the first time, I raced through it, and the second time, I took my time, reveling in the beautiful prose and making notes. There were certain phrases I wanted to remember...like the people at the "forgetting shack" who did not know how to face the darkness of their lives. This made me think of the parallels in our world. Many of the characters in the book were "trapped in the foggy ground between forgetting and living". Or this: "She was so busy forgetting, she couldn't take a single step into the future." This is a story so full of meaning and symbolism, so simple yet so complex, that I am sure one could get something new out of it each time it is read.
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Summary: Alice Hoffman is Why I Read!
Review: From almost the first line of the first page of Green Angel, Alice Hoffman's newest young adult book, I was transported to this author's special world of magic realism. Once the domain of writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, today Alice Hoffman takes her place alongside of them. A parable of September 11th, Ms. Hoffman using sparse language in a small book speaks volumes. The book centers around the emotional plight of a young girl whose parents and sister fail to return home after a day spent working in the city. After word reaches the young girl that a catastrophe has occurred and many are lost, she goes through various stages of grief. The young girl tries to find her way and a place for herself and encounters many events and other people shattered by a world gone mad. One cannot help but think back to those grim days after 9/11 and remember our own feelings that ranged from shock to sorrow and even anger. And when I finished the last page of this book I realized how well Hoffman presented this material to both young adults and adults alike. There are very few authors whose writing moves me the way Alice Hoffman's does. She is a master for making her readers feel all of the emotions she captures on paper as if we are within the pages of this book. I finished this book with a sigh and wanted to begin it all over again. I also fully realized once again why I love to read and most of all why I love to read a book by Alice Hoffman.
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Summary: The guilt of a survivor
Review: GREEN ANGEL by Alice Hoffman is a beautiful tale - a long poem, really - teeming with lyrical prose that is reminiscent of Francesca Lee Block's books. At a mere 120 pages, it doesn't seem to last long enough. Green was once a calm, serene, and quiet young girl. One day, after her family goes off to sell produce for profit without letting her tag along, Green is angered. But her anger changes to sorrow when she finds they won't be coming home. A catastrophic conflagration has swept the earth, taking lives. It leaves behind black ash, making the world a dark and ominous place in which the daily task of living is a challenge. Now Green, filled with guilt, must be self-sufficient, despite the fact that, at the very same time, she must recover from her loss and her guilt that refuses to subside. I felt Hoffman's poetic tale to be a downer - it's not once sugary sweet or overly heartwarming, sappy, or happy. Green changes to Ash, as does her personality. She dons black clothing adorned with thorns. Drawings scrawled in black ink cover her arms and legs. The pain of the thorns pricking her flesh does not faze her, nor does the remainder of the adolescent population, happy on their parents' liquor and dancing all night. Readers suffer with Green as she, a believable protagonist, picks up the pieces of her life in a courageous effort to move on. Her story is told poetically, beautifully, and eloquently, therefore flowing naturally. Despite being short page-wise, it isn't an easy read. Ages 12 and up recommended.
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Summary: The guilt of a survivor
Review: GREEN ANGEL by Alice Hoffman is a beautiful tale - a long poem, really - teeming with lyrical prose that is reminiscent of Francesca Lee Block's books. At a mere 120 pages, it doesn't seem to last long enough. Green was once a calm, serene, and quiet young girl. One day, after her family goes off to sell produce for profit without letting her tag along, Green is angered. But her anger changes to sorrow when she finds they won't be coming home. A catastrophic conflagration has swept the earth, taking lives. It leaves behind black ash, making the world a dark and ominous place in which the daily task of living is a challenge. Now Green, filled with guilt, must be self-sufficient, despite the fact that, at the very same time, she must recover from her loss and her guilt that refuses to subside. I felt Hoffman's poetic tale to be a downer - it's not once sugary sweet or overly heartwarming, sappy, or happy. Green changes to Ash, as does her personality. She dons black clothing adorned with thorns. Drawings scrawled in black ink cover her arms and legs. The pain of the thorns pricking her flesh does not faze her, nor does the remainder of the adolescent population, happy on their parents' liquor and dancing all night. Readers suffer with Green as she, a believable protagonist, picks up the pieces of her life in a courageous effort to move on. Her story is told poetically, beautifully, and eloquently, therefore flowing naturally. Despite being short page-wise, it isn't an easy read. Ages 12 and up recommended.
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Summary: Green Angel Review
Review: Green Angel by Alice Hoffman is a mystical story about a 15 year old named Green. Green has more than a green thumb. She is so in tune with the natural world that she can literally hear the green beans as they climb the vine and can coax the flowers into blooming. Green's world is forever changed when her family goes off to the city one day and never returns, victims of a horrible fire. Green's world, her garden and her heart are now covered with a thick layer of gray ash. With the help of a ghostly dog, a wise woman, and a mysterious hooded stranger Green is able to slowly clear away the ash. As the countryside begins to once again green up, she discovers that she herself has learned how to live in this strange new world.
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Summary: Green Angel
Review: Green Angel is a book that actually benefits from being judge by its cover. It is a beautifully packaged and designed YA book that will call for your attention from its place on the shelf. The story itself is sadly lacking in comparison. The story is hazed by vagueness and repetition. The reader can feel the protagonist changing but the quirky encounters seem to leave more questions than answers. There is also a question of lapsing time. It feels like years have passed when in actuality only a few months. This story might appeal to a YA because of its mysticism and body art but lacks the craft needed for older readers.
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Summary: A book of emotional Concept
Review: Green Angel is a first person narrative of a young woman (15 years old) who is the sole survivor in her family of an apocalyptic type event that the author never really defines or discusses. At first I thought she may have been referring to the World Trade Center, or the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Either way, the event itself causes the heroine to be left in her country home to fend for herself. She refers to herself as "Green" because she loves nature and has a near magical intuition for gardening and animal husbandry. The prose is beautiful, and while I found the subject matter depressing, I enjoyed Hoffman's use of language. She is a very good writer. The majority of the story is an internal dialogue with Green. You will not find a single quotation mark in this book, as the very limited use of dialogue is actually Green's retelling of the events in her mind.
Hoffman introduces Green in her normal world, surrounded by family and her gardening routine. At the onset of the apocalypse she enters another world, so to speak, and even changes her name to "Ash," which is reflective of the burned up world around her. Gradually, as a year passes, she is figuratively reborn as a new "Green," as she accepts a new normalcy. In a sense, this story is a "hero's journey" story. The book contains about 10,000 words and is suitable for young adults, aged 12-16. I honestly can't see most boys enjoying this book-although that will be their loss.
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