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Summary: Passionate Lives
Review: Which is the better choice -- Passion or a peaceful life? Is it better to make a sensible choice of mate and put romance aside, or does that just lead to trouble later on? One woman chooses safety, but finds herself drawn to her first and only love, a handsome playboy. She abandons her two children in Ireland and runs away with her lover to London. Her daughter takes a fateful action... no I won't give it away... and now there is no going back. The daughter, Kit, grows up to be an independent, intelligent woman. Now she faces her own choice: Will she marry the solid, dull boy who wants her, or the fascinating handsome devil she loves? Will she follow her mother's footsteps or find her own way?
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Summary: Remarkaly moving...
Review: This story is hard to believe. How could a mother leave her two young children for the love of a man? I was surprised at the beginning and a little dismayed that my beloved Maeve Binchy would consider such a topic. As usual, she weaves a tale that you CAN believe. Helen leaves and is presumed dead due to an unfortunate turn of events brought about by her (well meaning) young daughter Kit. Helen is living with the pain of separation of her children; Kit is living with the guilt of what she has done. Through the years, the secrets unfold and both mother and daughter have to learn to cope with the results. This story burns in my heart.
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Summary: Depressing
Review: As a mother I read this book and could not get over how depressing it was starting out. Yes, it got better, but still! What kind of person chooses "Silly Romantic" love over her own children! The author tried to make it all work out in the end, but look at all the sorrow every character had to endured, as well as the reader!
I love and recommend Mrs. Binchy's other books, but not this one.
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Summary: The Glass Lake
Review: This is by far the best of Ms. Binchy's books that I have read. It is my fourth and all but this one took me several pages to "get into." This book, however, got me from the beginning. Unbelievable character depth and kept my interest at all times. Never was this one boring. I loved it.
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Summary: Not Binchys best work
Review: The Glass Lake is the story of a woman who marries a man because her first love left her for someone else. She moves to a small town and is never happy. One day the "love of her life" comes back and she just walks away from her husband and two children and starts a new life filled with lies. The Glass Lake does not have the same wonderful group of charactors as the other books by Binchy and there was not one person in this whole story that I liked. It is an ok read but just not quite up to par.
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Summary: One of the best books ever written!!
Review: If you read this novel,you will agree that you were unable to put it down.The pages practically turned themselves.The Glass Lake is Binchy's best & it has great characters b/c Binchy really is an expert of human nature so her characters are well described.The monologue is absorbing & this book is full of great events so that you'll keep wondering what'll happen & you just root for or against the characters & almost become part of the book.Enjoy it !!!!!
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Summary: Nah - I've Given Binchy a Fair Shot
Review: The first (and only other) Binchy book I've read is Tara Road. That was sort of ok. I decided to read this one (loaned to me by a friend) to confirm or change my opinion of how this author's style fits with what I like to read. Interestingly I felt pretty much the same things in reading both books. For example, in both Binchy fills the pages with long, drawn out stuff that doesn't really matter and adds little, then the end is fast and disappointing. All of a sudden, in both books, something happens abruptly in the last few pages and it's over. It's almost as though she suddenly (finally?) got tired of writing and decided to end it. Stuff, filler, stuff, filler, filler, stuff, filler, Boom - END! With both books I turned the last page because I thought there just had to be some more of the ending. I skipped about 75 pages partway through this book - it just didn't seem to matter at all and it was plodding along. I finished the book because I was laying awake unable to sleep one night - and I was left with the feeling, as with Tara Road, of "hey, wait a minute - it's over??" (actually, I was ok with that, but wasn't left with any feeling that I'd read anything of substance or value. In the books I read I like to keep guessing about "who did what" or what's going to happen next - there was very little of that in this book. So, I have confirmed that Ms. Binchy simply doesn't fulfill my taste in novels - Binchy fans will most likely love this.
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Summary: so real
Review: Maeve Binchy has a way of making you care about the characters in her books. I felt so much for all the characters in The Glass Lake, especially Kit, and how well she seems to read people and at how she manages to forgive her mother, and form their unusual daughter-mother bond. I also felt for Lena. To be so in love that you sacrifice everything in the world only to find out he wasn't at all what you thought. Haven't we all loved like that at least once in our life?
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Summary: Love Her Or Hate Her Type Author; Great Book IMNSHO!
Review: I'll tell you right now that I have no problem believing that there are readers who love Binchy's books and those who hate them. Her novels are sentimental and nostalgic, set back often in the 1950s and 1960s, as this one is. She probably isn't far from maudlin but for me she doesn't quite tip over into being that heavy handed. Her novels are also romances combined with family sagas. I admit to having a very wide sentimental and nostalgic streak, however. Hence, I like her books just fine. With that warning in mind, and if you're still here, this novel involves two lead women, a mother and a daughter. The mother has run away with her boyfriend. Her daughter and rest of her family thinks she is dead. But she's not. She's working her butt off in England to support the bum boyfriend while her family remains in Ireland. It gets better because the story is even more the daughter's, who comes of age and meets the man of other women's dreams, Stevie Sullivan, who she needs to go out with so Stevie will stop going out with her brother's would-be girlfriend. On the surface, Stevie seems like a hard working version of her mother's boyfriend. One is tempted to think he's otherwise the same womanizing scoundrel. We follow the stories of both mother and daughter and at one point, the stories intersect. I couldn't put it down. Stevie Sullivan, for my money, is one of the best romance heroes ever written but the rest of the book is splendid as well. I read this huge book on one entire Saturday starting early in the morning. I even promptly started rereading parts of it when I was done, the true test of a book that's gotten under your skin. If you can resist it, you are a stronger person that I am!
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Summary: Simply outstanding from the first page to the last!!
Review: this book was simply outstanding from the first page to the last!! i found that I could not put it down! it is funny how having read Tara Road when I finished it I didn't think I could love any book as much and then I read scarlet feather and although I prefered tara road I enjoyed it as well! I didn't not believe that any book could ever be more amazing than Tara road... and then I read what i consider Binchy's best"The Glasss Lake" I found it to be one of the most amazing book I have ever read!
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