Bloodroot
by Amy Greene
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Book Reviews of Bloodroot
Book Review: A novel to savor
Summary: 5 Stars
On the front of this novel is a blurb from author Wally Lamb calling this "A Novel that has everything I savor in fiction." I can't put it any better than that. This is a book to savor, to relish each beautiful turn of phrase, to marvel at the strength of her characters, and to wonder again at the power of the human spirit. This is a dark story detailing the lives of a family living on Bloodroot Mountain in Tennessee. It is packed with wonder, magic, horror, and beauty. I have alot of family from this region and I truly was amazed at the authors strong narrative voice. These characters sang to me, bringing back memories of aunts, uncles and cousins many of which I only knew from my fathers stories. Alot of the people in this book are terrible but there are also alot who are inspiring. Another reviewer stated that she hoped that this wouldn't lead people to believe that all people from this region are bad - I just didn't see things that way at all. Ms. Greene did an awesome job of portraying the unbreakable bond between her characters and the mountain and their unrelenting devotion to each other. This echos things I have seen in my own extended family, something I have given up trying to understand but have long admired. The characters here are often victims of poverty and ignorance and I believe that in the end they do triumph much as life always does - through family and often times just by surviving to live another day.
This is a dark read- I spent alot of time with a lump in my throat. This author is gifted with the ability to elicit emotions that are raw and powerful. Read this book if you are a fan of the region, a fan of literary fiction, or just want to witness the debut of a powerful new wordsmith in the literary world.
Book Review: Things You Ort Not Do...
Summary: 3 Stars
Disjointed would better describe the story-telling method; epic, not so much. Sort of Pepperidge Farm meets Harper Valley PTA in hardback. Following a family backward, forward and then a step or two back just to end up where you do is less than charming. Except for three of the characters, there was really no need for all the first person narrative from viewpoints that in most cases hardly differed and in other cases hardly mattered. In this story it seemed to be more of a shortcut to techniques used in great story-telling. It has a very Nicholas Sparks heart-strings formula - and while not without some great moments - in particular the tales told by Granny or Myra herself, there is little unexpected here. Although the story through the eyes of the younger John to me is the most honest and direct - and therefore the part I liked best aside from the well-told moments when the characters are directly in contact with nature. The initial two segments are so pushy in their foreshadowing - and lack any strength or change of tone between the two voices they might as well be the same person. The author also abuses peculiarities of mountain speech that wear terribly thin by the book's end: where a character can appreciate Wordsworth and call to mind entire passages eloquently one moment the next they are thinking that'n they ort to have drunkts sometin' as they'd like to be mightily parched. Also, gobs of superfluous detail bog the story down and often de-rail its flow; perhaps that is the mind of the character, but there is an invisible narrator in the author's hand that randomly steps in or interjects - and that should have happened here much more often.Book Review: Greene's fiction debut is nothing short of breathtaking
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Amy Greene seamlessly interweaves colloquial dialogue with elevated language to create a fully-rounded, character-driven debut that has no shortage of interesting plot points. In effect, "Bloodroot" mixes the best of both worlds, and never fails to be surprising. Transcending genre, Greene has crafted an enduring look at the way people try to overcome their pasts - a theme that every person can relate to, yet still feels intimate and personal. Perhaps that is the greatest gift "Bloodroot" has delivered: the ability to be a tiny and enormous novel at the same time. The book is deeply tragic without being overly dramatic, and overwhelming without being depressing. Greene seems to have reached the pinnacle of imagination, mixing otherworldly melancholy with the small, teasing bright nuggets of hope. "Clint said sometimes he used to slip in the laundrymat and watch the clothes float in them glass portholes...he'd watch that round and round motion and get said, thinking about a circle that kept going and didn't end up anywhere." With this simple yet expertly crafted piece, Greene describes an entire feeling and character, lining up words so creatively that they need to be savored, balanced on the taste buds, and then slowly swallowed. To put it simply, some books are good, some books are bad, and some books are unforgettable. Without a doubt, Amy Greene's "Bloodroot" surely falls into the latter label.
Book Review: Smitten at the end
Summary: 4 Stars
This book review is going to be all over the place, sort of like this book.
The story takes place in Bloodroot, TN, in the Appalachian Mountains and follows the life of Myra Lamb. Myra's story is presented through her eyes and the eyes of the other characters. There aren't really chapters, there are sections, each section headed by a different character.
At the beginning of the book, I found this very confusing. My notes...Doug is in love with Myra, Byrdie is married to Macon, Clio is Byrdie's daughter, Myra is Clio's daughter, Myra is mom to Laura and Johnny...give you an idea of what I was facing! Just when I would start getting a feel for a character, it would switch, and I would have to go check my notes to see who was who.
Even with all of this confusion, the writing was simple and poignant:
~The same God who made that sky full of stars had made this love and I couldn't wrap my brain around the bigness of either one.
~I reckon nary one of them has ever set foot in a church house, but they sure do spend plenty of time in the jailhouse.
~She was right about me. I've done a lot of things I never thought I'd do. When I was a little girl, I always figured I would marry a mountain man, who knew the sting of briar scratches, the teeth-rattling shiver of cold creek water, the black smell of garden soil that made you want to roll in it. But John was the first thing I ever saw that was prettier than my home.
About three quarters of the way through the book, it became easier to follow and enjoy, and by the end of the book, I was smitten.
Book Review: Single Worst Book I Have Ever Read
Summary: 1 Stars
Do NOT read this book. I was assigned to read it by my book club leaders. They had not read it first. After the first 40 pages I wanted to put it down, but, because it was for my bookclub, I decided to read to page 100 and then decide. At page 100, I still hated it but decided to finish it because I thought surely, there would be some wonderful lesson that I would learn at the end if I persisted. This book has not one redeeming feature. It is so ridiculously painful to read (literally painful)and the story line is completely absurd. There are so many improbabilities (like how a prominent family in a very small town would not hear that their son was hospitalized for weeks in the local hospital) that it was almost pathetic. The violence serves absolutely no constructive purpose yet it is foreshadowed and carried throughout the entire novel. Plowing through the miserable lives of some mountain people taught me nothing at all. There was no moral, no lesson and not even a bit of pleasure at the end. After delving into the lives of the protagonist's twin children, Greene drops their story, only to return to the story of the mother, the outcome of which we already know. So who cares about her younger life? The only solution to this disgrace of a read is given in the epilogue with again too much detail, about which I really didn't care. Greene completely skips the details about which I might have been interested. How did the boy establish a great career? This book is just plain AWFUL. I have never written a review before but if I can save one person from opening this book, I have done a good deed.