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Title: Your Oasis on Flame Lake (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0449002985 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: July, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13
Rating: 3
Summary: Read Patty Jane's House of Curl instead
Comment: Oasis at Flame Lake is okay, but if you're expecting a book as wonderful as House of Curl, you'll be disappointed. There's just too much going on in this book for it to hang together; I felt as though I ought to take notes or draw up an outline to keep all the plot threads from getting tangled. In some books, multiple points of view work well, but in this case, it might have made the reading easier if Landvik had simplified, stayed inside one character's head, and cut out lots of the side stories. In the case of this book, less would have been more.
Perhaps pass on this one - but DON'T MISS Patty Jane yada-yada...
Rating: 2
Summary: No Reading Oasis For Me!
Comment: Granted I had very high expectations for this book written by Lorna Landvik considering how much I adored her first book Patty Jane's House of Curl. And granted it's hard to always measure up with two books in a row. But I never expected to be as disappointed as I was with this second offering by Lorna Landvik. As charming as her characters were in her first book and however compelling events were in Patty Jane's House of Curl, they unfortunately fell very flat in this her second title.
Essentially the book delves into the lives of two families brought together by friends who are now wives and mothers. The women, now in their 40's, have been friends since their high school cheerleading and prom queen days. Devara is a bit pudgier now still married to her high school sweetheart and the mother of two daughters. Her friend, Bidi, on the other hand has maintained her girlish figure, is married for the second time and the mother of a daughter who is the star hockey player on the once all male hockey team. And then there are the husbands, which include Sergio who adores his wife's daughter, but secretly yearns for one of his own and Dick who wants to open a nightclub in the basement of his home.
Your Oasis on Flame Lake offered little for me in the way of entertainment. Even the description of a harrowing experience and its consequences failed to move me emotionally. And unlike the characters from Patty Jane's House of Curl who still remain with me years later, these characters were almost wooden and less than memorable.
It may be regrettable now that I enjoyed Patty Jane's House of Curl as I much as I did. Not only didn't I like Your Oasis on Flame Lake but I also closed the book on Landvik's third title, The Tall Pine Polka Tree after almost 100 pages when the plot was going nowhere. I still have her fourth published book to read so there is some hope. But if that proves not to my liking I can always go back and reread Patty Jane's House of Curl and once again visit with old and dear friends.
Rating: 5
Summary: The title says it all -- a true oasis on a perfect lake
Comment: From where I sit (on top of a hill overlooking Island Lake at sunset in the NorthWoods of Minnesota), this work rings true. Landvik has a thoughtful, realistic ability to develop characters that engage not only the reader, but their spirit as well. Your Oasis made me want to hang out with these folks, have a latte with their daughters, bring warm gingerbread over for a fall chat. After falling in love with Patty Jane's House of Curl and its ditsy cast of characters, I couldn't wait to see how Landvik would approach her second novel. Was Landvik a one-hit wonder? Thankfully, NO. This realistic (especially the sunsets) look at mid-life and family crises left me feeling like I'd want these folks for next-door neighbors. With this second novel, I'd rate Landvik right up there with Jane Smiley, Anne Rivers Siddens, and Anne Tyler.
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Title: Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0804114609 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Welcome to the Great Mysterious (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0345442741 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 02 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Tall Pine Polka (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0449003701 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 29 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik ISBN: 0345438825 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd) Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Crazy Ladies : A Novel by Michael Lee West ISBN: 0060977744 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 28 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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