Rating: 
Summary: Loss and Renewal
Review: In Anne D. Leclaire's powerfully written novel, the reader enters the lives of two women who are far from normal. Opal is a young woman with a small boy who has fled from her mother, the father of her child, and her past. She moves next door to Rose who is a middle aged woman whose only child has been killed in an automobile accident. She has been grieving for 5 years, an activity that totally absorbs her. She has a loving husband who has tried to help her move on but she does not want to move on, partly because of the guilt she feels about her son's death. Opal's presence is the catalyst for change that Rose cannot ignore. This book is a page turner. From the time I began reading the first page until the end of the story, I did not want to interrupt the experience. By the way she presents Opal, Rose, and Rose's husband Ned in additional to several peripheral characters, Anne D. Leclaire reveals herself as a warm, caring, insightful person. She is the author of several previous novels that are also worth reading. I am recommending this novel to my book club and friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Multi-faceted Motherhood
Review: No two mothers are alike; yet the incredibly strong bonds with their children are something most mothers have in common. In this book of two wildly different women, it is really the maternal bond that takes center stage. Barely out of childhood herself, Opal still instinctively values, cares for and clings to her son. Rose was a model mother, but now clings to her grief as the only link left to her teenage son, killed in a tragic accident. As the story unfolds, it's hard to put down, just from the sheer weight of the emotion it evokes. Good writing is in the details and this book is filled with those subtle touches that speak to every mother's heart -- the smell of a newly bathed baby, the joy of watching a sleeping child, the tension of fear/anticipation that accompanies each step in their outward journey away from you. As the author of a book for mothers, NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL (Judson Press), I ached with Rose at her unimaginable loss and triumphed with Opal as she tried to make a new life for herself and her son. This book is endearing and enduring. It helps us to see one another with love and caring, not with the labels neatly sewn onto all of us by society. In this way, a young, unwed mother and an older, bereaved mother can find that common ground where love and caring forge new friendships, new life and new hope.
Rating: 
Summary: A Struggle
Review: Not only was it a struggle to finish this novel, I found the struggle of the characters overcoming their problems very depressing. There was nothing "normal" about their attempts to overcome their hardships. Rose never got on with her life until Opal entered the picture; Ned could never get on with his life because of Rose; Opal's immature handling of her problems could have produced nothing but the conclusion arrived at. I did like the literary style and how the time frames overlapped with each chapter devoted to one of the characters with the viewpoint and thoughts of that particular character. I had high hopes for this book and author whom I had never read before from reading the glowing reviews. Doubt I will read her again. I'd best stick to my thrillers and mysteries!
Rating:
Summary: sympathetic,caring treatment of possibilities after loss
Review: Opal Gates drives to Normal, Massachusetts as a result of the roll of a die. A believer of signs, this twenty-year-old single mother searches for the means to become both independent and whole. She comes to live next door to Rose Nelson, whose life has shut down since the tragic accidental death of her only son some five years earlier. Their lives intertwine in Anne LeClaire's affecting, inspiring and compelling debut novel, "Entering Normal." LeClaire's writing is both fast-paced and emotionally wrenching, as both women deal with broken or frozen hearts. "Entering Normal" is about decent people who are lost and adrift, nursing incredible grief or anger, struggling to find themselves, redefining their basic life assumptions, discovering -- often despite themselves -- that life truly does search out life. Alternatingly exhilarating in its hopes and terribly saddening in its portraits of good people coming to grips with possibilities lost and yearning for renewal, the novel seizes our imagination from the first paragraph and does not relax its solid grip until the last sentence. Ms. LeClaire sagely treats the implications of small lies, created benignly to protect or defend our loved ones, which evolve into malignant silences, threatening to unravel and ironically hurt the very people the falsehoods were designed to protect. Despite the marvelous pacing of the narrative of the novel, "Entering Normal" features a variety of absolutely believable characters. Opal Gates not only is proud, defiant and indominable in her love for her son Zack, she is also vulnerable, compassionate and confused as to her direction in life. This malestrom of emotions enriches her personality; LeClaire never permits her to exist as a symbolic sterotype. Her neighbor, Rose Nelson, is beautifully rendered. Loving bonds shattered with the death of her son; her dispassionate distance perplexes and vexes her blue-collar husband, Ned. Shut down and exiled to a self-imposed isolation, Rose's odyssey towards acceptance and understanding comes at great costs. "Normal's" minor characters not only advance the action, they give a sense of fullness to the struggles Opal and Rose enounter. Above all, "Entering Normal" extols the galvanizing impact of friendships and the liberating possibilities of loving relationships. Through its intriguing discussion of lies, silences and unspoken, thwarted hopes, the novel speaks to how isolative our sorrows and disappointments can become, so overwhelming and encompassing, in fact, that we may feel swallowed and digested by our burdens. It is the cardinal grace of this fine novel that the author provides not only solace for those of us who are hurting, but gentle and kind instructions as to how to overcome that self-imposed exile which lies engender.
Rating:
Summary: There is nothing normal here, this book is spectacular!
Review: Opal Gates is a single mom with a five year old son. She believes in signs. One day at a family picnic, she envisions herself and her life going on forever just like it is, and she decides to make a change. With the toss of a die that rolls a three, she uses three tanks of gas to arrive with her son and their belongings in Normal, Massachusetts, another sign, she believes, that she had done the right thing in leaving her controlling mother and useless boyfriend who is also her son's father. What follows is a tale that is both funny and touchingly sad. Opal moves into a house next to Rose Nelson and her husband. Rose is a tragic character that never got over the death of her sixteen year old son. Rose has shut out the world for forever it seems, but nothing is forever in Normal, Massachusetts, and you will find yourself wishing this story did indeed go on forever.
Rating:
Summary: A new start
Review: Opal Gates is ready for a change, so she throws the dice from her Monopoly game. The number she rolls, she decides, is the number of tanks of gas she will allow herself in her escape from a dead-end life in North Carolina. Opal rolls a three, and three tanks later, she finds herself in Normal, Massachusetts. Opal believes in signs, and if there ever was a sign that didn't need much interpretation, this was it: a town named Normal. Opal arrives with her five-year-old son, Zack, and sets up housekeeping in a furnished rental house. Opal doesn't know exactly what she and Zack will do in Normal, but she knows it has to be better than the place she left. She doesn't know anyone in Normal, but even that loneliness is better than having to deal with her distanced, disapproving mother, her ineffectual father, and her high school lover, Billy, who is Zack's father. In Normal, Opal feels an immediate kinship with her neighbor, Rose Nelson, a middle-aged woman who still intensely grieves the loss of her own son, Todd, in a car accident five years before. In the tradition of Mona Simpson's "Anywhere But Here" and Billie Letts' "Where the Heart Is," author Anne D. LeClaire tells a story of a woman who only knows it is time to start over; a woman who might not have housekeeping skills or social skills, or even the best vocabulary, but instead has a good heart, an unbiding love for her children, and the courage to change her life; and two women who find in each other the friendship and love they have both been seeking.
Rating: 
Summary: Entering Normal~
Review: Opal is tired of dealing with the dead-beat father of her 5 year old son Zach, and her overbearing mother, so she packs up the car and heads out of town, not sure of her destination. A huge believer in signs, Opal decides that she will call home, wherever 3 tanks of gas take her. Irony hits, as at the end of those 3 tanks, she approaches a sign that says, Entering Normal, which is in fact, just what Opal wants, a sense of normalcy. In Normal, Massachussetts, Opal & Zach have moved in next door to Ned & Rose Nelson, a couple in their 50's who have lost their son Todd in a tragic accident. Rose & Opal are complete opposites, Rose a conservative, inhibited woman, who has given up on life and wallows in grief over the loss of her son. Opal is an in your face, rowdy type, who swears like a sailor. What could possibly bring these two very different women into each other's lives & make them friends? Entering Normal is a story of motherhood, friendship, loss, and relationships, about the ups and downs of life, and how we find the strength to keep on going. The writing was well done, this is an easy read, and the pages turn quickly. However, the character development and plot line were only mediocre at times. This was an entertaining read, but I wasn't wow-ed by the end. I think LeClaire has talent as a writer, and I will try reading some of her other works. Overall, I would give this novel 3.5 out of 5 stars..it was a fair, entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: Anne D. LeClaire - Take a Bow
Review: Opal,an unwed mother and her five year old son,Zack,are escaping her life in North Carolina;away from her opressive mother,Melva,and the unwilling father of her son,Billy.She ends up in the small town of Normal in Massachusetts,moving into a house next door to Rose and Ned. Their son,Todd, was killed in an accident five years earlier and Rose cannot escape the prison of her grief over Todd's death.Opal is a free spirit,albeit a good mother . An unfortunant accident reluctantly involves Rose, which opens a small door to their bonding. Roses' guilt over this forces her away from Opel, but already a change is being wrought upon her by their brief association.Opal's family and Billy wreck havoc upon her and Zack, while, at the same time, Rose has a further tragedy in her own life. The bonding, which has already begun,becomes full-fledged, and the two unlikely women join forces in their crises, changing them both for the better in the process.Opal is so well portrayed as a tough young woman determined to make it on her own. Having lost a son, I have known a few Roses myself, who refuse to leave their grief, making it their way of life. Ned, Rose's husband:Billy,Zack's father and Ty,Opal's off-times boyfriend are all believable. Her mother,Melva, is the controlling mother many of us are familiar with. Altogether, this is a wonderful book ,and Anne D. LeClaire has believably characterized these people and their interactions.
Rating: 
Summary: Ultimately Disappointing
Review: The reviews I read of this book made me very anxious to read it, as I too have lost a child and knew that I'd certainly be able to relate to the feelings of the grieving mother, Rose. Being drawn to this book because of Rose, I was intrigued about her life, the course of her grief over her son and the development of this unlikely friendship between her and Opal. Though the description of Rose's grief rang true to me, I felt that the book, as a whole, was full of holes, poorly developed characters and a faulty, contrived plot line. Though I finished it, I didn't really feel, by the end, that I knew Rose and Opal at all or that I understood who they were deep in their souls or why they would even be drawn to each other as friends, other than because of the surface circumstances of their lives. Opal was a truly botched character, and somehow she never came together for me as someone who was sympathetic in any way. She was angry and full of rage about her childhood, her family and Billy, she took lots of this rage out on Ty, I couldn't feel the development of anything true and real between them besides lust and sex...and she shared her rage with almost every character in the book with her charming (?) attitude. (All of her supposedly humorous self-talk about others in the book became really annoying to me after about the second time...and the book was loaded with these stupid, unfunny, private glimpses into Opal's feelings about people!) Also, though I am a really good cusser who is not offended by much, I felt that her sailor's mouth was way overdone. Rose also suffered from the same lack of character development, I thought, and was a shadowy and foggy figure throughout whom we didn't get to know in any substantive way, either. And the ending was almost unbearable to me. It was so contrived, tucking in all the loose ends and coming up with a neatly wrapped package of unreality and illusion that left me with feelings of "Oh, right!" and "Come on, Anne Leclaire, do you really expect us to believe this?" This book was, ultimately, a major disappointment for me and a major waste of my cherished reading time. I do see lots of 5 star ratings for this book, though, and I am very puzzled and wondering: Did we all read the same book? If so, I must certainly have missed something!
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking
Review: This book managed to keep me occupied for hours on a plane, always the mark of an engaging story to me! "Entering Normal" is the story of emotional and painful times in the lives of two very different women, but it never descends into angst, nor do the main characters ask for pity. Rose is 50 and lost a son, her only child, in a car accident five years ago. Opal is 20 and is running away from her controlling family and the father of her five-year old son when she rents a house next door to Rose's. How these two women *rescue* each other, emotionally and otherwise, is the topic of this novel. Rose has been consumed by grief for five years because of her imagined guilt. Opal is trying to keep custody of her child. The bond of motherhood brings these women together and allows them to help each other in ways that neither would have imagined. Anyone who has experienced the joys and sorrows of parenthood will be able to relate to these sentences :"Watching him, she feels a familiar jolt in her stomach, the sharp, sweet terror of motherhood." "Having a child is like having your heart walk around outside of your body, bumping into things." Rose tries to write what she feels, keeping this a secret from her husband, Ned, who cannot manage, despite his best efforts, to penetrate her grief. Le Claire writes: "She wrote all about Todd and how she missed him and how one minute a person could be in your life, laughing and smiling and driving you crazy with their foolishness, and then the next, with no warning, they were gone and all the words you never got a chance to say would be locked up inside you, and what ever happened to words locked inside, where did they go?" Food for thought.
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