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| Family Lonely | 
 enlarge | Author: Caroline Leavitt
Publisher: Amazon
Category: Book
Buy New: $0.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1862853
Media: Digital
ASIN: B000G03NOO
Publication Date: May 30, 2006
Availability: Available for download now
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
I'm always interested in the tangled web of family--the ties that bind and sometimes strangle. And I'm interested in the things people cling to to give them hope or put their lives in context--which in the case of this story is religion. This story started with an image, the fires that occurred in Hoboken, and it took off from there.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Another helping of arsenic ... October 8, 2006
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
The story begins:
"Nora always thought that when you had family you would never be lonely .... There'd be none of the silence and order she herself had as a kid, none of the rules and rigidity ... "
Okay. So far, so good. Sounds like the story of my life. Can't wait to see how it ends.
But then it continues:
" ... In the end, maybe she didn't get exactly what she wanted. Maybe she didn't even really want what she thought she did. But she got most of it."
Hmm. And then you read the rest of the story and you hearken back to these lines and you go, "Wha-huh? What just happened?! Does not compute!"
So I could end the review here by saying: I didn't get it (because I did't), but that would be unfair to people who are reading this for the purposes of trying to decide whether they want to buy this story, or not ...
So I will say this:
The story steadily meanders between the contrived (eg. the fairytale romance) & the divine (eg. the super-supportive church) & the realistic (eg. the rebellious teenager) & the confusing (eg. repeated mentions of the husband), etc. -- so much so, that I could hardly figure out what kind of story I was reading (i.e. Will it be redemptive? Or: Will it be tragic? Or: Will it be mystical/magical?) I also felt a little manipulated by the meandering & inconsistent plot lines and perhaps even a little cheated, because I felt like I was reading a story that had been hastily slapped together with little regard for craftsmanship ...
But, then again, some people love this sort of thing, so let me end by saying this:
If you're looking for warm fuzzies, then look elsewhere. Chicken Soup for the Soul this is not.
(And why it was posted in the "Religion" section, I cannot tell you.)
 A delicate story full of quiet feelings October 5, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Caroline Leavitt has a rare gift for rendering delicate, quiet moments. In this short, as she always does, she is a modest writer. Her voice is so genuine, the kind that shines through life's most painful truths and helps us know what is inside us, too, with greater clarity. What a glide... like watching a figure-skater who lets us move vicariously on the ice with her.
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