Helpful Score: 3
This is my number 1 favorite book! I have read a lot of books and this one moves me every time. I have read it many times and it never gets old. I have extra copies that I lend out all the time and everyone who has read it has really liked it as well. It's hard to put down, even when you know what happens. You can't miss with this one!!!
Helpful Score: 3
This book is absolutely exquisite!!! Definitely on my top 10 all time favorite books now. This book was just wonderful, I am very excited to pass it on to someone else. This is the author's first book, which makes it all the more astounding to find a story with such a intricate story of love, hate, loss and race. This book touched me deeply. Any book that can have your eyes brimming with tears or have you shouting at the pages through empathy and anger, you know the author has a very rare and wonderful talent. A definite must read!!!!
Helpful Score: 1
I don't know if this is an Oprah book. It sounds like one, with tragedy after tragedy. But unlike one of those, this has a nice amount of joy, some simple pleasures, and just the right kinds of love between human beings to alleviate the pain. It's a grand story of a 70 yr-old woman's sad life, recalled when she unbelievably takes in a mildly-retarded, mixed race child to raise. So wonderfully read by Ruby Dee, who does the voices of man, woman, child, perfectly. I really liked this book.
Helpful Score: 1
This was such an incredible book. I couldnt put it down. You want to laugh, cry, and shout for joy in each chapter. The main character Addy just touched my soul. So deep and beautifully written! A must read!
Excellent book! A book that I really wished had a second book----Iwould love to know what happened to the characters next. And how their lives turn out!
Helpful Score: 1
After I read her "The Girls," I knew I had to go back and find anything else she'd written and read it. I felt as though she truly got what it was to be old and look back on one's life. The ending was both sad and joyful; simply masterful.
Helpful Score: 1
Really enjoyable book about an elderly woman (Addy Shad) who has a child (Sharla Cody) dumped on her door step. Addy's story with Sharla is entwined with the story of her life from a pregnant teen until adulthood. The book is full of twists, turns, and surprises. From the author of The Girls...if you liked that one, I highly recommend this one.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a fantastic book, a seriously heartwarming story that touches your heart. I suggest it to anyone. It holds your attention all the way through and the end brings you to tears.
Helpful Score: 1
About the power of love, memory and human compassion. Atruly great read!
Helpful Score: 1
This was a great novel. It's the story of an older ladys journey through her past in order to save a little girl that has been abandoned. It is about race, love, hate, and loss.
Helpful Score: 1
This was a fantastic book-it went between the lives of the little girl, Sharla, and the lady who was taking care of her after her mom dumped her to run away with her boyfriend. I couldn't put it down!
loved this book--a beautiful story of a woman who didn't let incredible odds from making her a loving caring & incredibly principled person.
read it & love it as I did.
read it & love it as I did.
The story starts off with a woman knocking on the trailer door of 70 year Addy Shadd. She asks her if her 5 year old daughter can stay with her for awhile. Addy agrees and the child, Sharla Cody shows up a day later with basically nothing more than the dirty, nasty, clothes on her back and nothing else. Addy takes her in, cleans her up, and begins to attempt to mother the child who's own mother never really cared about her. Come to find out Sharla's mother takes off to never return again. Addy keeps Sharla with her and tries to mother her the best that she can and try and give the child a good life. While taking care of Sharla, memories of Addy's own past come to head..a rape that produced a pregnancy, leaving home and fleeing to Detroit, the loss of her child, lost loves, marriage, more children, and many other things that occured in Addy's life. The author also manages to mix in a good portion of history into the story from the Underground Railroad to Prohibition.
A sad book, but well written.
Lansens makes you care about the characters and invested in their story.
Lansens makes you care about the characters and invested in their story.
I really enjoyed this novel. It was different, fun and kept you turning the pages. The story just sort of stuck in your mind when you had to stop reading and the next thing i knew ---i was back at it, wanting to read as much as i could, but not enough to finish it as i wanted it to last. Very good.
This is the kind of book that keeps you reading just so you can find out the ending but then you wish it would never end. This book on a scale of 1-5 gets a 10 from me. Addy Shadd is 70 years old when Sharla Cody five is left on her doorstep. Addy has been through so much in her life, she starts to remember the past and Sharla knows she is only waiting to die until she can find a place for her.
Read this book it is one of the best reads this year for me
Read this book it is one of the best reads this year for me
I really enjoyed reading this story,Addy,70 year old black lady,meeting the young white child,Sharla,heartbreaking story of 2 unlikely people,they changed each other's life forever.They were both from poor backgrounds,and the child was left in the care of Addy.you might say abandoned,by a mother who had no coping skills.Sharla,the 5 year old child,and Addy,tell a wonderful story,love,hate,memories,race and all emotionally compelling,a story well worth your time.
I loved the main character, Addy Shadd. Her story is not new, but Lori Lansens embroiders such depth and detail into the landscape of Addy's life, I found myself picking up the book as often as I could just to find out what was happening to Addy next.
One of my favorite books!!
