TheMemory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

I decided to purchase this book as a change from reading biographies and I am very impressed with the enitre book. I did not go out with any particular book in mind and not quite sure what it was that attracted me to this one, maybe that it has a sticker on the front saying that it has been featured in Richard and Judy's Summer Read. the Memory Keepers Daugher is written by Kim Edwards who I am not familiar with but the book states that it was the multi-million copy US No 1 best seller so I though that it must be quite good. The book is split into sections. 1964, 1965, 1970, 1977, 1982, 1988 and 1989 The book starts with an introduction to ...  Read the complete review

New York Times Bestseller It was originally brought to my attention through Richard and Judy who featured it in their Book club. It received an impressive review for a relatively unheard of author and I was intrigued. I bought this book as part of my mums birthday present. My mum is a midwife so I thought she might enjoy the subject matter of the book...I secretly couldn't wait until she had finished so I could read it. I was reading the book on holiday in Egypt so maybe that's why I found it a little hard to get into at first. I was so distracted by all that serious sunbathing that I had no time to read! Eventually I made some ...  Read the complete review

The title of this book reminded me of the excellent Time Traveller's Wife, and the blurb sounded good, so I was looking forward to reading it. A man makes the difficult decision to give up his Down's Syndrome daughter and tell his wife that the baby has died - a great plot, full of potential! Sadly, the book didn't live up to expectations. The characters weren't bad, but were underdeveloped. The book was split between the two stories of the wife/husband/son and the nurse/daughter, and I felt that the author failed to integrate the two enough. The split also meant that there was not enough time to follow through and develop all the story-lines, for example the ...  Read the complete review

The "Memory Keeper's Daughter" was not a book I had initially set out to read. But, during my recent house move, I was between libraries and in the unusual position of being stuck for a book. My local Borders was offering best-selling paperbacks on a "buy one, get one half price offer", and after choosing the one I really did want to read, this was my choice for the half price book. I was swayed by the fact that it was written by an assistant Professor of English, Kim Edwards, and was suggested by Borders to therefore be literary fiction. It was also billed as a multi-million copy US number 1 bestseller, and books don't achieve that without an awful ...  Read the complete review

Kim Edward’s debut novel has proved to be a number one bestseller in the States where it has attracted high critical acclaim. I was therefore looking forward to an inspiring and gripping read. Unfortunately I was to be extremely disappointed and after reading the first two chapters I left the book gathering dust for a couple of weeks. I finally decided to persevere and, although it did start to engage me around the half way point, I was lured by the expectation that something dramatic was about to happen. Not wishing to include any spoilers, I can only say, my expectations were not met! The story opens in 1964 in Lexington Kentucky where Nora Henry is ...  Read the complete review