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Title: Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0-425-18494-3 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 06 August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.43 (91 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: America's Most Haunted
Comment: Ethan is the pillar of the community--a great husband and father, an honest carpenter, a baseball coach who never yells at 11-year-olds who err on the field, and a volunteer fireman who is known for taking death-defying risks to save lives. So it comes as a great shock to everyone who knows him when he is arrested on suspicion of an old unsolved murder. Well--a shock to everyone but Kat, the 12-year-old neighbor who provided the anonymous tip that got him arrested. So begins Alice Hoffman's Blue Diary, which explores how catastrophically this single event haunts Ethan's family, friends, and neighbors.
Blue Diary is a book that would be a 5-star read against 95 percent of what's on the bookshelf. Hoffman's stiffest competition, however, is her own work and Blue Diary doesn't come up to the standard of Practical Magic, Turtle Moon or the River King. Hoffman's prose is always clear and her stories always interesting, but the lush poetic imagery of earlier novels is missing in this one. Jorie (Ethan's wife) and Kat (the neighbor kid) are well-drawn characters, but a bit transparent compared to the masterfully painted characters of Hoffman's other books.
Nonetheless, Blue Diary makes for an interesting read which poses the thought-provoking question: how well do you really know anyone? and the paranoia-provoking corollary: how can you be so sure?
Rating: 4
Summary: Alice Hoffman at Her Best
Comment: Alice Hoffman fans will not be disappointed in her new book Blue Diary. In typical Alice Hoffman fashion, the writing is elegant and plays on the readers senses. Hoffman has the ability to transform bland, sentences lacking description into beautiful well thought out sentences. Hoffman also has the ability to take insignificant ordinary people bumbling through life and turn their lives into a wonderful complex story. Hoffman accomplishes both of these things in Blue Diary.
The beginning Blue Diary introduces the main character Ethan Ford, and his wife, Jorie. Ethan is an extraordinary citizen, and excels at everything he does and is far from ordinary. Suddenly, Ethan is arrested at his front door, and Jorie doesn't exactly know for what. It turns out the Ethan was arrested for a murder that took place 15 years before, long before Ethan met Jorie and made a perfect life for himself. The rest of the story unfolds through the different point of views of primarily four characters: Ethan, Jorie, their son Collie, and Collie's best friend Kat.
Up until the last third of the book, the plot excels, making this book extremely hard to put down. The writing is absolutely beautiful, and certain sentences have an almost chilling effect. Towards the end of the book though, the plot begins to weaken. It's almost as if Hoffman had a deadline to meet and had to rush through the ending of the book. The writing is still beautiful, and that almost makes up for the lack of plot.
Blue Diary is a suspenseful novel that captures the readers by playing on their emotions and their senses. It is extremely hard not to fall in love with this book. Alice Hoffman is an amazing writer and her book, Blue Diary, doesn't fall short of wonderful.
Rating: 2
Summary: Romantic imagery but little realism
Comment: Can we really ever know anyone completely? Even the most loving and intimate partner of 13 years? Jorie, the protagonist of this lush novel, finds out the answer to this question, but she might have asked it much earlier, maybe at the wedding when his side of the chapel was completely empty. Hoffman is a talented writer, and I kept reading, with special interest in the sharply defined adolescent characters, but Jorie's ignorance about her husband's past is unreal and puts a hole in the plot too big to ignore.
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Title: Fortune's Daughter by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0425168700 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 13 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Drowning Season by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0425184757 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0425183262 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Green Angel by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0439443849 Publisher: Scholastic Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Local Girls by Alice Hoffman ISBN: 0425174344 Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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