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Title: Name All the Animals : A Memoir by Alison Smith ISBN: 0-7432-5522-4 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.68 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Teenage years from the true personal experience
Comment: From the beginning, this story captured the dynamics of a typical family with beliefs, family trips, summer jobs and tragedy struck immediately to alter their lives forever. I remember this horrible accident while I was in high school in Rochester, NY and was truly fascinated about the story of the author and her relationship with her family and friends at Mercy High School. She is truly talented and touched on so many issues that teenage girls face mixed with the fact that her brother passed away so suddenly one day. The lessons of faith and her father's need to bless her each day and her mother's love and carefree ways did not help her deal with the loss. She struggled for so long to find the right cure for her heartache. The book made me look back on my high school years with a different perspective and appreciate the diversity of the students. This was a very meaningful memoir that we all can relate to in some way.
Rating: 4
Summary: A compelling account of a family's loss
Comment: First time author Allison Smith has written an engrossing memoir that reads like a coming-of-age novel, as she describes childhood pastimes, family vacations, struggles in school, her first kiss, etc. However, superimposed over all of these activities and events is the shadow of her older brother's sudden death when she was 15 years old. Smith shares her own response to the loss of Roy, a brother with whom she was so close that they shared a common nickname, Alroy. At the same time, Smith skillfully weaves in stories of her family's past, an effective literary tool which serves to illuminate the different reactions of each family member to Roy's death. The narrative does not always relate to Roy directly, but although Smith devotes much of her book to her experiences in school, friendship, and love, the specter of Roy is always present.
Smith has done a masterful job of characterizing the many different emotions which compromise grief; her book is not just about sadness but about anger, confusion, numbness, guilt, embarrassment, and more. The teenaged Allison is a poignant figure who can't help but to ignite compassion, not only in those around her but also in the present-day reader. My one disappointment about this book is that the reader is told little about Allison's future. Although Smith includes an epilogue which takes place 13 years after Roy's death, these final pages add little to Allison's story, leaving the reader to wonder about her health(...) and her life in general. Overall, however, this book is a remarkable acheivement for Smith, who clearly has the makings of a novelist.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Beautifully Written and Honest Memoir
Comment: Alison Smith's Name All the Animals is a beautifully written and honest memoir. Smith was about 15 years old when her 18-year old brother was killed in a terrible car accident, leaving Smith as her parent's only child. Smith recounts the three years following her brother Roy's death with heartbreaking honesty. Smith had the double difficulty of trying to cope with her brother's death and her own identity at the same time. The nuns in the Catholic high school tried their best to understand her, but in some ways, Smith fell through the cracks--parents assuming the nuns were taking care of her, and vice versa. After Roy died, Smith's life moved forward, at sometimes an alarming rate. Her life was difficult and joyous--and her memoir communicates that beautifully. Smith is an excellent writer and this is an excellent memoir.
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Title: The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters: A Novel by Elisabeth Robinson ISBN: 0316735027 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 07 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Little Children : A Novel by Tom Perrotta ISBN: 0312315716 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant ISBN: 1400060737 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 17 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel by ANNE TYLER ISBN: 1400042070 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: My Sister's Keeper : A Novel by Jodi Picoult ISBN: 0743454529 Publisher: Atria Books Pub. Date: 06 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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