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Title: A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club) by Kaye Gibbons ISBN: 0-375-70306-3 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: November, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.39 (83 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Review on "A Virtuous Woman"
Comment: This book was a love story about a daughter from Carolina who was brought up carefully and a farmer who never in his life had the chance to own anything. They both came from different backgrounds. The daughter's name was Ruby Pitt Woodrow and the farmer's mane was Blinking Jack Stokes. Ruby first became a widow after a brutal relationship she was in with John Woodrow. She gave her parents and her two brothers a surprise when she ran away with John. John was also a farmer and died in a brawl. Considering she was a brought up well and with proud she didn't ask her parents for help. So, she decided to go work at a wealthy home with the Hoover family. This is where she first meets Jack. When Jack first meets Ruby she was twenty and he was forty and they got married five months later. At first they weren't in love, but then after a while when they started to need each other and became they were there for each other. Ruby become sick with cancer and really needed Jack more then ever. It starts with Jack grieving over the death of Ruby. While the rest oh the chapters gives flashbacks on the past. Both jack and Ruby were very lonely and in the need of wanting at the beginning. They received a lot a support by friends that they had. This book is a very touching novel and gives strong emotions. It shows the different between two lovers who have very different backgrounds and end up falling in love with each other. I recommend this book to others because it is not hard to read and it's easy to understand. This love story make people think about how others don't really miss something or someone until it's gone. People take things for granted when it's there but when it's not there no more then they stop to think about what really just happened.
Rating: 2
Summary: A light read.
Comment: A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons. Not recommended.
In A Virtuous Woman, Kaye Gibbons tells the story of the daughter of Southern gentry, Ruby Pitt Woodrow Stokes; her tenant farmer second husband, Jack Stokes; and those who affect their lives most'Burr, his wife Tiny Fran, her delinquent son Roland, and their daughter June.
Gibbons uses a technique of alternating chapters, with the first written by Jack, the next by Ruby, and so on, until the last chapter. Chapter sixteen is written in the third person omniscient, with characters' thoughts sprinkled throughout in italics. This method is effective in the beginning, where Jack talks about his reaction to the news that Ruby has been diagnosed with lung cancer and her silent, selfish request for a cigarette, while next she talks about her response to his reaction and her own motivation. Further into the plot, however, this method loses its impact as the reminiscences become more random and less structured.
Although the idea of alternating chapters, most flashbacks except Jack's chapters toward the end, lends itself to a more dynamic approach to time, Gibbons keeps it virtually linear, from Ruby's youth and disastrous first marriage to a drunken, controlling migrant worker named John Woodrow and his death to her marriage to Jack, the notable events of their lives, Ruby's death, and Jack's life after Ruby.
Although A Virtuous Woman is well written and in a few instances somewhat insightful. The characters often seem to lack interest or depth; some, like Woodrow, Tiny Fran, and Roland, are little more than stock rural characters (no-good man, no-good teenaged girl, no-good bastard). They appear primarily to fulfill a standard a role and have little interest'they exist only to explain such things as Ruby's path toward Jack and the Stokes's unusual interest in Burr and Tiny Fran's daughter June. When Woodrow is critically injured in a drunken brawl, the wives of the other migrant workers feel Ruby should "stand by her man" no matter what, which also seems to perpetuate a type rather than offer any real insight.
Above all, A Virtuous Woman feels forced and unnatural. It is out of character for a barely literate man like Jack Stokes to document his memories, including quoted conversations, in such detail and with such care. This would have been a stronger story if presented as an oral history rather than a written one.
The unlikely love story and marriage of Jack Stokes and Ruby Pitt Woodrow Stokes has potential, as do the characters. Unfortunately, Gibbons does not have the depth as an author to uncover it.
Diane L. Schirf, 19 August 2003.
Rating: 4
Summary: This is a wonderful love story
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love how it was narrated by both of the main characters. The way it went back and forth between them made you understand how they felt about each other. Kaye Gibbons beautifully depicted a rare kind of love between a husband and wife. I cannot understand some of the low ratings I have been reading, but everyone has their opinion. I loved the characters and I highly recommend this book.
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Title: Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons ISBN: 0375703055 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen ISBN: 0440226104 Publisher: Dell Publishing Pub. Date: 02 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: While I Was Gone by Sue Miller ISBN: 0345443284 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage ISBN: 038079487X Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds ISBN: 0425162443 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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