Helpful Score: 5
Slow at first, but gets very good. Kind of surprised by content, did not know what this book was about, many life lessons learned by this woman.
Helpful Score: 4
I lost a niece to a tragic accident. This book helped me understand my feelings as one left behind expected to carry on.A good read.
Helpful Score: 4
excellent writer, I could not put it down. It moved so fast and was so touching. It really got into peoples feelings or the hiding of feelings. I found the mother quite a character.
Helpful Score: 4
Beautifully written story of grief and burdgeoning sexuality.
Helpful Score: 4
I really enjoyed this book. The story did not flow how I had expected it to but it was surprisingly good. A quick pace and easy to read. Told from the younger sister's point of view and all the emotional stuff she needs to deal with when her older brother dies.
Helpful Score: 3
This was really good- for a memoir, it read just like a novel. Whereas many memoirs have an inherent sense of distance in relaying the events and experiences of their past, this one had a real sense of immediacy. There were very few sentences that relayed anything of the future - no real hints as to how it all "turned out." She is a very talented writer and I would read just about anything else that she wrote. I was just impressed by the whole book. It was very emotional, and just... quite excellent.
Helpful Score: 2
A heartbreaking memoir, but a very well written one.
Helpful Score: 2
A touching portrait of grief and adolescence. Compounded are intricate layerings of a struggle with faith and a stirring of attraction that is forbidden by that same faith.
I enjoyed it all the more because I live within miles of the author's childhood home. The landmarks are familiar to me - I found myself curious about how it reads to others who don't know it.
I enjoyed it all the more because I live within miles of the author's childhood home. The landmarks are familiar to me - I found myself curious about how it reads to others who don't know it.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a story that has stayed with me quite awhile. I really enjoyed it. I read it in the paper version and the audio. LOVED the audio!
Helpful Score: 2
Name All The Animals is a memoir you will never forget. It is about a family's struggles to survive the accidental death of a much-loved son and brother. Not surprisingly, it takes each member of the family many years to regain a sense of safety in a world which would allow such a tragedy to occur. Each family member suffers and copes in his or her own way. Really, you must read this book.
Helpful Score: 2
This was such a great story. The family tragedy that changes everyone, told by the sister who looses her brother but also looses a part of herself. very very good.
Helpful Score: 2
Very sad but excellent.
Helpful Score: 1
Name all the animals is the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and a young woman stuggling to define herself in the wake of this loss. The story's central character, Allsion, attempts to deal with her grief, while trying to help the rest o her family as well.
Helpful Score: 1
very quick read.... from the perspective of someone who has lost a sibling..an insider's view of her thought process when dealing with the loss.
A very interesting story of growing up with loss. A great read.
This book was a surprise. i had not heard of it. it was really wonderful. well written. Brought me into what it was like to grow up Catholic. Familiar to e in that the family didn,t really talk about what was going on. B+
Riveting! This is an incredible read. It is one of the saddest, yet interesting books i've ever read. I couldn't put it down. Allison is a very good author!
This is a sad but well written book.
A little depressing, but OK.
A luminous, true, story, NAME ALL THE ANIMALS is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and of a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss. Heartbreaking but hopeful . . . an extraordinary memoir.
Interesting book
A luminous, true story, Name All The Animals is an unparalled accoutn of grief and secret love; the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and of a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss. As childre, siblings Alsion and Roy Smith were so close that their mother called them one name, Alroy. But when Alison was fifteen, she woke one day to learn that Roy, eighteen, was dead. Hearbreaking but hepful, this extraordinary memoir explores the aftermath of Roy's death: his parents' enduing romance, the faith of a deeply religious community, and the excitement and anguish of Alison's first love---a taboo relationship that opens up a world beyond the death of her brother.
