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 The Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman
 The Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman ... with flower-opening sunshine one day, only to bring on the most abysmal gloom the next. She enchants and she riles, and her powers are extraordinary, although the overture to her fourteenth novel is awfully sweet. Ethan and Jorie, gorgeous and madly in love after 13 years of marriage, are just too horribly perfect. Ethan is a carpenter, baseball coach, and volunteer fireman. Jorie is a homemaker and a gifted gardener, and their 12-year-old son, Collie, is handsome and good. It's enough to make you puke, and that's exactly Hoffman's intention because this is a make-believe life that has run its course. The girl-next-door, the younger, funny-looking one named Kat, not her exquisite and coldhearted sister Rosarie, misses her father, who committed suicide, and has never trusted Collie's, so when she recognizes an old photograph of Ethan shown on a most-wanted TV show, she makes the fateful call and then watches in shock while her neighbors' lives collapse like a house that looks fine from the outside but has been consumed by termites until it's no more than a shell.Newest Review: ... I was unable to gather much sympathy or understanding of Ethan's character before his past crime is revealed to the ... more ... community.
This could have been what the author intended; that the reader only sympathise with Jorie and her son Collie, but I don't think this was her intention at all. The beginning of the story explains how Ehtan is a volunteer fire fighter, how he helps on the children's soccer team, how he rescued people from fires and generally serves his community well and is an excellent husband and father. Although I understand that having long chapters describing his heroic acts in the community would be boring, I did feel that t...more |
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Read Reviews for The Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman
The Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman: The dull Blue Diary (952 words)
by - written on 27/09/09 (Very useful, 82 readings)
Rating:
Jorie and Ethan Ford are the perfect couple; still in love after 13 years of marriage, one 11-year-old son and all are well liked and respected within their small-town Massachusetts community. However, all it not what is seems and soon Ethan is exposed as a liar, rapist and murderer when a young girls phone call names him in a crime that happened 13 years previously. Nothing will be the same for Ethan and his family, the whole community is shaken; Jorie and her son especially have to try and come to terms with the fact that the man they love is not what he says he is. "A moving, poignant, powerful tale about love, death, friendship and ... Read the complete review
Living with a rapist! (663 words)
by - written on 25/05/09 (Very useful, 41 readings)
Rating:
This was a book that I received from readitswapit.co.uk so really did not know what to expect. My usual way of picking books is to look at the cover / author and see what attracts me. One downside of swapping books is that this is not possible! I chose to select this book as the back cover talked about - "what if everything that you know is a lie" - sounded exciting and it did turn out to be a great read. Plot Without giving too much away (the key fact is on the back cover!) the story revolves around a couple living in small town mid west USA. Ethan and Jorine and their son Collie are central figures in the town. Ethan is a volunteer ... Read the complete review
The Blue Diary - Alice Hoffman: What if everything you believed in turned out to be a lie? (513 words)
by - written on 18/05/07 (Very useful, 135 readings)
Rating:
The Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman is a novel set in middle America. It tells the story of Jorie and Ethan Ford. They have had an idyllic marriage for thirteen years, their garden overflows with fruit and vegetables and they are loved by all their neighbours. Mostly because Ethan is a volunteer firefighter and has saved many of his neighbours lives, and he is also a respected and trusted carpenter who has remodelled many of his neighbours houses. However, their world is shattered when Ethan is accused of a brutal murder that occurred over ten years ago. The novel follows the fall out from this accusation and its effect on Ethan’s family and friends. I found the ... Read the complete review
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