Kaleidoscope

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Danielle Steel is a wonderful author and I love her books. This one is just not one of my favorites!

Rating:
Summary: The Worst and Best Happen to Danielle Steel's characters!
Review: I read this in celebration of Danielle Steel's 50th book. What an anniversary for her! This book, originally printed in 1987, is timely today just as it was then, detailing the heart-wrenching story of three sisters, torn from each other at a young age. Each sister went to a different family and had a different upbringing, with the oldest having been beaten and raped in her experiences in foster homes. Finally making it on their own, they are brought out of their lives in their thirties and are brought together by the very man who separated them, after he hires a private investigator to find them.

Little does the man know a big surprise is in store for him at the reunion.

The sisters reunite and swear never to stray far again.

A TV movie was made of the book, with Jacklyn Smith playing the oldest daughter. A very compelling movie, taken very carefully from the book and shown in a sequence of flashbacks.

An excellent book!

Rating:
Summary: The Worst and Best Happen to Danielle Steel's characters!
Review: I read this in celebration of Danielle Steel's 50th book. What an anniversary for her! This book, originally printed in 1987, is timely today just as it was then, detailing the heart-wrenching story of three sisters, torn from each other at a young age. Each sister went to a different family and had a different upbringing, with the oldest having been beaten and raped in her experiences in foster homes. Finally making it on their own, they are brought out of their lives in their thirties and are brought together by the very man who separated them, after he hires a private investigator to find them.

Little does the man know a big surprise is in store for him at the reunion.

The sisters reunite and swear never to stray far again.

A TV movie was made of the book, with Jacklyn Smith playing the oldest daughter. A very compelling movie, taken very carefully from the book and shown in a sequence of flashbacks.

An excellent book!

Rating:
Summary: Well written time pleasing novel.
Review: I thought this book was wonderful. It was a gift from my wife and have read over five times. I really cried when Hilary was seperated from her sisters, but my favorite characters were Maida and Georgine. Hee-Hee.

Rating:
Summary: One of her best!
Review: Kaleidoscope is one of Danielle's best. I enjoyed every page from beggining to end! Some say the end is unrealistic, but it's fiction! You should read this one.....you won't be dissapointed.

Rating:
Summary: Definantly one of the top 5!
Review: This book moved me in many ways. I actually cried throughout most of it.
The story starts out in the 1940's with a man named Sam Walker who is in the war, and in the war he falls in love with a beautiful french woman named Solange Bertrand. They eventually get married and have three kids.
Sam is a big time movie star, and one night out of pure madness, he kills his wife Solange, and then Himself, leaving his three daughters orphaned, and separated to different families.

Hilary, the oldest, was treated the worst. She had to move in with her aunt and uncle who treated her horribly and was in and out of homes and Juvinile.
Alexandra, the middle, was adopted by a great family and when her father died, her mother moved to France to greeve, and remarried a french man, leaving her in France to grow up and eventually marry.
Megan, the youngest, was adopted by a family, and then she grew up to become a doctor.
This book is so wonderful, and shows what trials that these women had to go through, expecially Hilary. I would DEFINANTLY recommend this book to anyone! It was so good and truly shows that Danielle Steel is a great and wonderful writer.

Please read, you wont regret it!

Rating:
Summary: Nature Versus Nurture Steel Style
Review: This is actually the first Danielle Steel novel I'd ever read and since there was no synopsis on the book anywhere I had no idea what I was reading about. After finishing the story I sorta came to the conclusion that it is almost an exploration of nature versus nuture in terms of how people turn out.
The story follows two generations of a family, starting with two friends that meet in WW2 and their interactions with a young frenchwoman named Solange. In the end one of them marries Solange and they lead a nearly perfect life with a tragic ending, leaving their children orphaned and eventually seperated. The story picks up again in bits and pieces about each childs life and how they progress based on their new living conditions, and when the other friend - the one who wasn't married to Solange - is near death he wishes to seek them out again and make sure that each child is ok. Romance, breakups, disturbing sequences, and questions of self and ones place in the world arise and the ending of the story comes somewhat full circle to the beginning but overall it is a bit cheesy.

Regardless of which the story itself is captivating, and if this is typical of Steel's work then you should be satisfied. The story is well connected, if not particularly well stylized, it is written in very generic form where everyone is gorgeous and the world is nearly perfect, even the 'bad' people in the story are perfectly bad. While the book doesn't send out any major messages to its readers, it is a fun intriguing read for the summertime.

And if you are wondering about the title Kaleidoscope, it refers to how with each turn of said toy, even though you have all the same pieces on the inside you see something completely different in the little window. Just like with each of the children in the story, while they all started out in the same living conditions, each of their lives took a different turn and produced different images...yet Steel is quick to point out they share certain mannerisms, hence the nature versus nurture question.

Rating:
Summary: My first of many...
Review: This one started it all...my journey to reading all of DS books.
That was over 10 years ago. Man, it's hard to pick a favorite, her earlier works though are on the top. A sad story, but it keeps the pages turning. A great ending too.

Rating:
Summary: Readable
Review: You pretty much know what to expect with Danielle Steel and "Kaleidoscope" is no exception. A readable book with an interesting (albeit predictable plot). I find Danielle Steel is best when she doesn't try to explore realism. There are scenes describing Hilary's horrific childhood that just don't come off as convincing. Technically, she may be one of the worst bestselling writers in the world, but she keeps you turning those pages...-Sophie Simonet, author of ACT OF LOVE, a romantic suspense novel (Fictionwise.com)

Rating:
Summary: Readable
Review: You pretty much know what to expect with Danielle Steel and "Kaleidoscope" is no exception. A readable book with an interesting (albeit predictable plot). I find Danielle Steel is best when she doesn't try to explore realism. There are scenes describing Hilary's horrific childhood that just don't come off as convincing. Technically, she may be one of the worst bestselling writers in the world, but she keeps you turning those pages...-Sophie Simonet, author of ACT OF LOVE, a romantic suspense novel (Fictionwise.com)