Faithful

Turgid in the extreme!!I'd read some of Alice Hoffman's stuff in the past, but this was, to me, unreadable. I managed to wade through 22% of ... frankly desperately uninteresting rubbish.One minute the protagonist Shelby has taken to her death bed in the cellar unable to move, feed herself, get out of bed, talk to anyone, interact, or face life. The next we read she's upped and offed and gone with Ben (her weed supplier) to live in New York, where, daft as it may seem, she suddenly has a job and is rapidly elevated to store manager. And yes, to thicken the plot we have her kidnapping two damaged stray dogs used by beggars on a rotational basis to wean money from idiots.Nothing about the book as far as I'd read it was realistic, particularly sensible, or in any way uplifting. There was no plot as far as I could see except for some disjointed individual bathing page after page in utter misery and making you, the reader, feel like you wanted to give her a right good kicking for being so feckless.How this book has been so generously reviewed and warmly received is TOTALLY beyond me. At least Catcher In The Rye went somewhere and did so pretty fast in ways that were interesting, intriguing and memorable. Trust me, this is nothing like that. I absolutely hated it.

I found this to be a strange book to read. The style of writing felt disconnected and emotionless, but I wonder if this is deliberate because of how the main character reacts to the events that took place before the book. Deliberate or not, I found that this made it hard to really feel invested in the characters, and at times it left me cold. However, there was something about it that still kept me hooked in and made me feel that I needed to see it through to the end.

I bought this novel accidentally and had no idea what it was about. I was really pleasantly surprised by the hauntingly sweet, trauma filled tale of a girl who learns to live again. Really lovely even in the darkest moments.

My first Alice Hoffman novel and it actually was very good. The book opens with tradegy. It was very good, an engaging read, well written with wise messages to a older teenage audience.I did find certain parts of the book exhausting at times, some aspects emotionally draining as realistic.

I loved this book - I read it in two days as I was totally drawn into it. Lovely style of writing, great storytelling and very compelling. Realistic, but optimistic. Apart from other things it tells a tale of our past may shape us, but it doesn't have to define us.