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Julie Cantrell

Autor von Into the Free

10 Werke 711 Mitglieder 57 Rezensionen

Werke von Julie Cantrell

Into the Free (2012) 312 Exemplare
When Mountains Move: A Novel (2013) 137 Exemplare
The Feathered Bone (2016) 121 Exemplare
Perennials (2017) 110 Exemplare
God Is with Me through the Day (2009) 12 Exemplare
Het lied van de bomen (2013) 2 Exemplare
Dog Saves Duck (2023) 1 Exemplar

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Self-exiled daughter of the South returns home to Mississippi at the behest of her parents and has to deal with painful memories, guilt, and her sister's hostility. There's drama and flowers and sweet tea and trauma, and a whole lot of name-dropping of Mississippi writers like Faulkner and Welty, along with shallow ruminations on their work. Faulkner and Welty would, no doubt, be turning over in their graves if Cantrell were representative of the state's crop of contemporary writers. Poorly written, with two dimensional characters, a bunch of God-talk and woo-woo quasi-spiritual bunk, I basically ended up hate-listening to this. The audio narrator did the book no favors with some really terrible accents and weird inflections.

2.5 stars

ETA: According to some other LT reviews, this is classified as "Christian fiction." Had I known that, I never would have picked it up :-P Buyer (borrower) beware, I guess...
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½
 
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katiekrug | 11 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 8, 2024 |
Historical fiction and coming of age story about Millie, a poor girl living in Mississippi in the 1930’s-1940’s with her abusive alcoholic father and depressed drug-addicted mother. She interacts with the Romany travelers that arrive each spring and longs to follow them out of town, but the responsibilities and love she feels toward her mother make it difficult to leave. Her life is further burdened by a series of tragedies.

This book is about decisions we make in life and the ramifications of those decisions. Oftentimes decisions must be made when very young and incapable of fully anticipating the consequences. It is also about the human responses to hardship and abuse. I thought the characters were well-drawn, especially the protagonist, and the writing flowed smoothly. This book contains an element of Christian theology, which was culturally appropriate for the time period in the American South. It shows both positives and negatives associated with “religious” people. I didn’t find it overbearing, but it will not be to everyone’s taste.

The primary difficulty I had with it concerned an immediate “bouncing back” from trauma. Horrible things have happened Millie and I found her actions afterward difficult to believe. I felt something was missing in helping the reader understand her responses. There were also several historical inaccuracies, especially with respect to references to WWII, which were not necessary to the plot and could have easily been omitted. Content warnings include domestic violence, rape, drug abuse, and scenes involving animals that may be disturbing to sensitive readers.
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Castlelass | 23 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 30, 2022 |
Two things I wasn’t fully aware of when I was given this book to read; one, it was the second in a series and two, it is classified as being Christian literature.

Maybe my inability to connect with any of the characters in this book was due to the fact that I hadn’t read the first one in the series, and because of this I didn’t understand some of their personality traits and motivations behind the things they did and said throughout the book. Those I did connect with, and thoroughly enjoyed were characters, which obviously from the way they appeared in the novel, were making a debut on these particular pages. Maybe because I read this out of sequence, there were many times I just didn’t find the characters believable at all, and this really disappointed me to a point where I nearly consigned this book to the ‘to be finished later’ pile.

The saving grace in this novel, and the one that kept me reading through to the end was the vivid way in which the Author describes the small corner of Colorado the main protagonists call home. When the main character sees the scenery before her for the first time, and it takes her breath away it also takes the readers breath away too, such is the skill this Author shows when writing about the locations in which the novel is set. The Author has also obviously done a great deal of research into the local plants and herbs of the area, as well as the crafts of quilting and knitting and this shines through when she explains the use for the herbs and plants encountered. In many ways this book could have so easily become preachy as it is full of references to God, but it didn’t. While staying true to its genre it still managed to portray a harsh and gritty way of life for those who were trying to break ground and start new lives not only partway through a world war, but so close to the end of the depression era.

As much as this was an enjoyable read it didn’t make me want to backtrack and open the first, and I highly doubt I will read anymore in this series. I would recommend this to readers of Christian literature, but I would also advise they read Into the Free #1, before tackling this book.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/01/17/review-when-mountains-move-into-the-free-2...
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Melline | 12 weitere Rezensionen | Aug 13, 2022 |
I like this story of the trials of a family. I think we all can relate at some point. I did not enjoy the god aspect that came at the end. Wm Faulkner was large part of the story. I learned a little....
 
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wincheryl | 11 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 20, 2022 |

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Werke
10
Mitglieder
711
Beliebtheit
#35,656
Bewertung
3.9
Rezensionen
57
ISBNs
46
Sprachen
1

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