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Title: Maybe Next Time by Karin Kallmaker ISBN: 1-931513-26-0 Publisher: Bella books Pub. Date: August, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent Read!
Comment: Grab the tissues and settle down for an intense journey with Sabrina Starling. Karin Kallmaker has truly outdone her own previous work with the portrait of a woman driven by talent and frustrated love to conquer her profession while making a hash of her personal life.
This is an erotic, moving tale that challenges every conception of what a "romance" is supposed to be. I am a big fan of many other writers, but I admire the sheer breadth of what Kallmaker achieves in a wide range of novels and characters. When I pick up one of her books I never wonder "which heroine will be the wounded, dark one and which the sweet, loving patient one" as I do with some of Radclyffe's work. Nor do I have to worry that I'll encounter weak or outright bad writing. And her characters are so real, and they live in the real world.
Maybe Next Time's characters are more flawed than most. Bree is kind in her very heart, not a diva, and she would not ordinarily use someone else's heart to forget her own pain. But when she does just that, it is so heartbreaking to all concerned that I was two tissues down halfway through that part of the book. Bree grieves over what she's done, and my goodness so did I. Parts of this book are so tragic it touches all the emotions, because there is nothing so moving as tragedy overcome with hope, and possibilities of happiness where only sorrow and despair had existed before.
You will be sorry if you don't read this book. Kick back, keep the tissues handy...and as someone else said, you'll be wishing to see this story on the big screen. The settings are lush, the structure of the tale intriguing and ultimately, quite quite satisfying.
Rating: 5
Summary: Get Over Wanting it Easy!
Comment: If you want an easy read, a quick romance and lots of bedroom time don't read this book. But if you do read this book then read what Karin Kallmaker actually wrote -- not what you wish she'd written because you felt like having the same-old-same-old today. It's like wanting your fix of vanilla ice cream, ordering spumoni and then complaining.
If Maybe Next Time was a PBS documentary or an indie movie (and it ought to be!) I don't think anyone would whine that Bree's story wasn't "good." The jacket copy is a BIG clue this is not your typical romance! Among other things, this is a story of "personal tragedy."
I found it absolutely uplifting, touching, wrenching, heartbreaking. I cried and at the end was *very* relieved and happy for Bree. Her music was a curse and when it was lifted she had to start over and she made some really bad mistakes (oh and thank you whoever you are who gave away a KEY element of the plot -- that's nice for those who haven't read it yet!) and she finds the power to atone, to change.
As for Bree being unlikeable and immature -- whatever. I think anyone who is thrust into the performing world at a young age won't be mature in some ways, and yet unbelievably controlled and mature in others. Reeling from the betrayal of a lover, Bree pulls herself together to give a critical performance at an audition. How many of us more "likeable" people could conquer our anger and hurt that well?
I have followed Karin Kallmaker's writing since In Every Port and I see her FINALLY breaking out of the old Naiad cookie cutter. I am stunned with every new book. Maybe Next Time was powerful, well-written, complicated and deeply absorbing. Is it her best romance? Maybe not. Is it the best thing she's ever written -- yep. I would definitely say it is. If you don't read this book because it's not the typical 200-page girl-meets-girl, misunderstandings and hot sex, and live happily ever after story then you're missing out. There's nothing wrong with that kind of book, but there's more to life than vanilla ice cream. And this book is simply no comparison to a lot of 400-page potboilers where the lesbians aren't even sexual. Please. I thought we were past the era of fading to black when it comes to the part where the characters do the things that make them lesbian. Bree is sexual; she likes women. It's a big part of her story, the how, who and why she has sex. Those scenes are just plain hot.
Personally, I think Karin Kallmaker writes the feel-good kind of romance better than anyone, and I'm sure she will again and I'll enjoy it. But I hope because those less interested in good literature are whining about her having the audacity to write something that makes them stretch doesn't make her stop. I want our community to have this incredible writer who conveys a *realistic* range of lesbian experience. I'll take *anything* she writes over some of the unrealistic drivel getting vanity published these days, and most of the highly-lauded "novels" out there. I just finished a "must read" *serious* work where I was supposed to identify with a cross-dressing drug-addicted bicycle messenger. The book was good but give me Kallmaker's universally appealing characters any day. I have been shoved off my preferred paths in life along the way by tragedy, misfortune and pain, and if that's true of you then I don't see how you wouldn't find Bree's struggles totally absorbing.
I think I'll add that if you want to show that you read something closely and have a considered opinion to offer you might want to spell the author's name correctly. That would be Kar*I*n, not Karen. Plus, it's Dian*A* not Diane. Also, if you want to read a sample, visit her web site and you'll see what you're getting.
Read it, let it be what it is, and you won't regret a moment. Books like Maybe Next Time don't come around that often. Please keep writing them, Ms. Kallmaker, because some of us *do* get it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Intense, satisfying read
Comment: Some of the reviews say that this book is hard to read, but my opinion is that it's got nothing to do with the writer, or the writing! The book has been nominated for a Lammy in the romance category and it deserves to win.
Maybe some people find it hard because it's real. No sugar coating. Sabrina Starling is deeply wounded. Her life has been seemingly magical but fate has been abruptly cruel. Sabrina, petrified she has lost her ability to play the violin, does something cruel herself, but it's not fate that gets hurt, but real women.
Sabrina's despair about not just her violin but her own actions is intensely moving. Can she somehow find a way to make amends? When you actually believe that you deserve the bad things that have happened to you, how can you possibly find happiness and love?
Karin Kallmaker made me believe it. I couldn't stop reading. Tears running down my cheeks at times, I ached for Sabrina to heal, to find her way back to her music, love and passion.
Nobody who reads with an open mind and open heart can't be moved by Sabrina's final confrontation with her losses and how she lets go of the most precious thing in her life in order to move on. I could feel the sea spray on my face.
What a great book. Karin Kallmaker surprises me every time.
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Title: One Degree of Separation by Karin Kallmaker ISBN: 1931513309 Publisher: Bella books Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Tomorrow's Promise by Radclyffe ISBN: 0974092215 Publisher: BookEnds Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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Title: Love & Honor by Radclyffe ISBN: 097249264X Publisher: BookEnds Press Pub. Date: 31 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.99 |
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Title: Twist of Fate by Jessica Casavant ISBN: 1932300074 Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Passion's Bright Fury by Radclyffe ISBN: 1930928939 Publisher: Renaissance Alliance Publishin Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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