Family Tree
by Barbara Delinsky
|
List Price: Our Price: $0.86 You Save: $25.09 (97%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Family Tree
Book Review: Does Barbara Delinsky Know ANY African Americans?
Summary: 1 Stars
As an African American woman living in America and in the 21st Century I can say that this book is a complete concoction of the author's imagination. Do you want to know what offends other cultures, races, and ethnicities? I know one thing: People writing books involving those ethnicities and getting it completely and horribly wrong! I found 3 things to be terrible and indicative of ignorance on the author's part.
1) The African American characters
Okay I always wondered why so many white writers exclude diversity in their work. This book is evidence of why that should continue to be the norm. The black neighbor, the black woman a part of Dana's sowing group, and Dana's husband's great-great-great grandfather were all biracial! The majority of black people in the US are at least 80% black and 20% other races. Barbara Delinsky had the nerve to make all the black characters self-deprecating, self-hating, white loving, and biracial!!! Look lady, we got too much literature, movies, music, and other media showing that black people are more than pleased to be black and are proud of that. Yes, there are people who hate their blackness, but there are people who hate their whiteness, Asianness, etc... It happens, but does Dana's neighbor have to be such a Uncle Tom?! 'It sucks to be black. I wish my daughter wasn't black because her life will be crap...tear and sniffling'(Not quotes but what he basically meant)What?! Does he have to pine after every white woman in sight. Interracial love is a beautiful thing, but it seems that Barbara was trying to make a different point than that.
2)Dana's family was too jacked up!
First of all your child would not come out noticeably darker with two white parents unless you were creepin' with someone else who happens to be black. Not other way to explain that. Then your husband got a DNA test cause he thought you cheated on him and there were not repercussions for his distrust of you?! Your husband's family were jerks to you and your husband doesn't defend you and stop the ill treatment?! And by the end of the book you're still together?! Okay, Barbara this is so stereotypical meek and weak white woman that I'm not even going to get into all that. I just have to say that I hope that not too many white women will take that!
3) The Story Was Not Researched!!!
The premise was good and it had me hooked. I actually hope that the woman who wrote the book would provide some good meat within the story for me to chew on. But alas, Barabara Delinsky only provided one bun. The other bun, meat, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and condiments were missing. That for me makes the book sucky and offensive. If you are writing about another race in detail DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! Make sure that you know what offensive things need not be written. I guess she thinks being who she is makes up for not knowing a doggone thing about the black community and the black mentality when she writes about it.
I guess I should stick with black authors for believable and empowering black characters. Sad, that this is the 21st century and yet we still in so many ways live in the 20th.
I give here an F- for little to no effort! But I'm sure someone will enjoy it...
Book Review: When White is Black
Summary: 3 Stars
In this enlightened year of 2007, intelligent, educated people accept people for who they are, right? So what if you happen to be mixed race. Well, as long as it isn't in a blue blood family. Barbara Delinsky puts a new twist on the term "reaching back". That term refers to how a baby can reach back and take on the physical traits of an ancestor. This is what happens when Dana and Hugh, a white couple, have a baby girl who comes out with obvious African features. Hugh comes from a Brahmin New England family. His father, a professor, proudly writes about his forebears aristocratic bearing.
The premise was good,however, I found the execution to be flawed on so many levels. The condescending manner of most of the white characters and the self-deprecating manner of the token Black characters were very irritating. Another thing, all the "Black" or African American characters were bi-racial. I kept scratching my head. It's like Delinsky didn't know that Blacks could be mixed without being biracial.
David, the neighbor, left a bad taste in my mouth. He was a self-deprecating, self-hating person. He wished his half-white daughter was all white. "Life would be easier for her," he wishes he were white and, he is in love with Dana, the protagonist, and basically lives white. We find out later he is indeed biracial but his description does not lend itself to that. He was a pitiful character, whining about being black and mooning over Dana. The characters were obviously drawn from a white writer who has limited experience with blacks and therefore the integrity of the storyline was compromised. She could have asked somebody.
As a genealogist and researcher of African American culture, I am well aware of the dynamics of mixed blood and how it is played out in America. I know there are some white families who have black ancestors; a secret that some of them do not want brought to the light. As an African American, I know that we are not a monolith and we do not all subscribe to the theory that to be white is the ultimatum desire.
The story was predictable; there was a foreshadowing that predicated the end result. The best part was determining who was the "culprit"; the carrier of the dreaded African gene. I do not know where Delinsky was going with this or what, if any point she was trying to make but I expected more substance. There were too many stereotypical, clichéd characters, therefore leaving those readers who have little experience or contact with African Americans with misconceptions. The ending was a little too kumbaya but it was a quick read that some may find entertaining.
P.S. Earlier this year, I read and reviewed When She Was White by Judith Stone, a nonfiction account of a black child born to white parents in Apartheid South Africa.
Dera Williams
Book Review: Too abstract (though it fits the cover)...
Summary: 2 Stars
...and such a meaty premise, too. What a shame! Had the unnecessary storylines concerning Earl's (Dana's grandfather) and Crystal Kostas (Hugh's client) been left out, it wouldn't have been a better book, but it would have been less of a mediocre book to read.
As I find the subject of knitting a colossal bore, and since I am probably not the only woman who thinks so, Ms. Delinsky could have left out some of the more technical details of the craft. What happens sometimes with authors is that if they love something, they want to share that love with others by decribing it/telling about it, in minute detail, and they end up boring the reader/the person. I am thinking Ms. Delinsky really loves knitting!
I agree with another reviewer that all the knitting must have been a metaphor for something, but if it was, I wouldn't know it, and I usually pick up on those things and am delighted when I do, but this author just seemed to scratch the surface of everything without really getting to its heart.
Though I was reading about how the characters felt, I never felt the emotions. The only thing I felt was empty while reading this book, even though it was a very emotional plot. I didn't have strong feelings for any of the characters and if you don't care passionately about what happens to them, your story is in trouble.
Though I didn't find myself really rooting for any of the characters, I did find myself rooting for the black ancestry to be on the man's side, because of the way they were.
The way Dana acted when she met her father was atrocious, I think just as bad or worse than her husband asking for a DNA test and though he said it was to shut people up (which I understand, for Lizzie's sake, so people won't be saying she's a child of an extramarital affair), but I wasn't totally convinced he was convinced that she had been faithful to him.
Also, the story about Corinne didn't really add anything either, though you could tie it into the main storyline. There was just too much other stuff going on that though the main story did not get lost, it just bogged me down because the orignal story, even if stripped of all the needless subplots/sideplots, wasn't enough to really engage me, though I did manage to finish it because it was an easy read and I guess it was more the plot that drove me to the finish line than the characters, but those kinds of stories don't stick with me and I am ready to go onto the next book instead of savoring the one I just read.
This book is worth the read, for no other reason than the interesting premise, but it's not a keeper. Definitely buy it USED.
Book Review: Another winner by Barbara Delinsky
Summary: 4 Stars
FAMILY TREE by Barbara Delinsky
July 28, 2007
Amazon Rating: 4/5 stars
I hadn't read a Barbara Delinsky book in quite a while (years) so this one was a treat. In FAMILY TREE, Dana Clarke is pregnant. She and her husband Hugh are expecting their first child with much anticipation. She is looking forward to raising her own family and creating a loving home, something she didn't have when she was growing up.
When she finally gives birth to her daughter, there is a big shock. While Dana and Hugh are both obviously white, their newborn daughter is not. She's definitely of African American descent, and now Dana is wondering who in her family was black. Hugh is able to trace his ancestry several centuries back, but there are a number of unknowns in Dana's background, including a father she knows nothing about. The birth of her daughter has now forced Dana to go in search of her roots, because it seems that Hugh isn't even sure he can trust Dana, accusing her of having an affair, possibly with their neighbor.
FAMILY TREE is about racism, and whether color has anything to do with what a person is really all about. Hugh loves his wife, but Dana feels that because he thinks she's part black, he is treating her differently. Her in-laws also find more reason to fault her, as they didn't quite welcome her with open arms to begin with. I enjoyed the book a lot, as I found the search for Dana's roots interesting. There was a lot of tension between Dana and Hugh as they try to find out where the missing link in the family tree is coming from. There is a big surprise towards the end of the story, however, and while I suspected it at first, it still came as a shock to me when it was revealed. FAMILY TREE was a fast read and fans of Barbara Delinsky and women's fiction will be sure to enjoy this one.
Book Review: Good premise
Summary: 3 Stars
This is not necessarily a bad book but, like other reviewers, I believe that this is not among Delinsky's best works. The premise on which the narrative is based is good but probably was not developed enough for a book length work of fiction. The details of the relationship between the two main characters (I am referring to the reason why they married, similarities and differences, etc) are left to the readers imagination to a great extent. One has to actively look for clues in the text. However, although the reader can empathise with the surprise of the new parents when their baby is not what they expected, the reactions of the parents (and I am referring especially to Hugh) don't have a solid justification. Dana is surprised but her love for the baby supercedes any other feeling; however,since we don't "know" Hugh, his demand to have a paternity test sounds offensive and even frivolous. At the same time, it is a display of human nature: all along, everyone knows who Lizzie's mother is... The question is that it bothers the reader because we don't expect for him to doubt his wife's loyalty but we really don't know him that well to be either offended or understanding of his demand).
Although I could see where the author was going with her subplots and secondary characters, some of these were either undeveloped or really just distracting form the main narrative. When at the end of the novel most of the plot lines were resolved, I felt that there was a push (last 30 pages or so of the novel) to "tidy up" loose ends. Having said all this, it is an easy read and I enjoyed it while waiting at airports. Again, it is NOT Delinsky's best novel.