Thicker Than Blood Jan English Leary 9781942515128 Books
Download As PDF : Thicker Than Blood Jan English Leary 9781942515128 Books
Andrea Barton is single but wants a child. When an infant is abandoned at a church on the north side of Chicago, Andrea first becomes a foster mother and then adopts her. Andrea believes that love and her experience as a social worker will see her through the challenges of raising an African-American child in a white world. During Pearl’s childhood, Andrea is able to protect her daughter from many of society’s blows. But when teenaged Pearl starts to seek her own identity, their relationship is threatened. Both mother and daughter face situations that force them to confront the possibilities and limits of love.
Thicker Than Blood Jan English Leary 9781942515128 Books
What a great story. As a new mother, I identified with the protagonist and her struggles to balance her desire for control with her daughter's best interest. It was an interesting read that left me wanting more, I look forward to more from this author!Product details
|
Tags : Thicker Than Blood [Jan English Leary] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Andrea Barton is single but wants a child. When an infant is abandoned at a church on the north side of Chicago,Jan English Leary,Thicker Than Blood,Fomite,194251512X,Fiction,Mothers and daughters,Literature & Fiction Literature,Chicago (Ill.),Illinois - Chicago,Interracial adoption,FICTION Literary
People also read other books :
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
- The Search For My Inner "I" Joseph W Macy 9781483679297 Books
Thicker Than Blood Jan English Leary 9781942515128 Books Reviews
Thicker Than Blood by Jan English Leary
This was a Goodreads win for me. The bonds between women are like a rubber band, they stretch, give and take but manage to hold pretty true to its original shape. This is the way I saw the bond of Andrea and Pearl. Andrea sharing her love with her adopted daughter Pearl, Pearl accepting it but as time goes on she pushes Andrea away as a lot of teenagers do. Joined in that rubber band is Andrea's mother, Nancy, with secrets of her own that she has never shared with anyone. Joanne, Andrea's "perfect" sister, who can't admit her own daughter struggles with anorexia. Freya, Andrea's co-worker, tries helping Andrea but is struggling with her own issues that she has chosen not to share. The bond each of these women has with Andrea stretches but the question is will it be able to maintain its shape or will it snap under the pressure of life's daily struggles? Nicely done Ms. Leary.
What is a family defined by blood, love, proximity? This is the central question of Jan English Leary’s first novel Thicker Than Blood.
The book mainly follows Andrea and her daughter Pearl from the time Andrea adopts Pearl through Pearl growing into young adulthood. Issues of race, discrimination, and acceptance also come to the forefront of the novel in record time as Andrea struggles with the difficulties of raising an African American daughter in Chicago, an already racially charged environment. In tandem with the above themes, those of expectation, self-worth and self-confidence also play a central role in the thematic make up of Thicker Than Blood.
At first the reader accompanies Andrea as she struggles to be a confident and successful single mother, but the novel quickly hops to other character’s heads giving differing perspectives on the difficult situations at hand. We see what life is like from Pearl’s point of view, from Andrea’s boyfriend Mike’s point of view, from Andrea’s mother Nancy’s point of view, as well as from other minor characters. Though this sort of head hopping can often jar a novel and its reader out of the flow of the story, Leary does it in such a thorough and uncomplicated way that there are never any questions as to whose head we are in, or why we are there. Every character’s perspective adds weight and value to the central themes of the novel in ways that would be otherwise inaccessible.
We come to understand what the issues of family, race and self-confidence mean for Andrea, Pearl and Nancy as we discover secrets about them that even they don’t know about one another. Gaining access to the deepest darkest parts of their pasts, the reader is able to sympathize and interact with these characters in a way that the characters themselves are not able to do with one another. In turn, the characters are strengthened and we become more invested in their imperfect and disjointed lives.
A beautiful and moving piece that explores questions relevant to every human being, Thicker Than Blood is a momentous novel. Leary has done a brilliant job of gathering universal themes and holding them up for the reader to observe and judge for herself.
The novel ends with a question “Who knew what they were to each other?”
The reader does. You not only know who they are to each other, but how they came to be in that coffee shop and the worlds they have known. You know the love they share and the traumas they have endured, you have read a book you will not forget. You have been the only confident on a secret that changes a woman’s life, one she’ll never tell her daughters. You have followed a girl through the streets of Paris, unable to warn her that the character she’s trusting, against her better judgment, can’t be trusted. Even before that, you have been unable to warn her that the friends she trusts in high school are involved in a cruel trick. You know it’s a cruel trick, but you don’t know how it will end and you turn pages experiencing the bewildering pain of the prank. Earlier om the novel, you have an aunt lash out at the one child who is trying to make a thanksgiving dinner the success the aunt had in mind.
Jan English Leary succeeds in developing the complexity of adopting a child and the challenge Andrea, a single mother endures. Leary creates characters who support one another, sometimes let those most important to them down, and ditch true allies when their needed them most—once because their own lives are wrenched by cancer.
You might guess when you pick up a book called Thicker Than Blood, that family ties will be explored, but you couldn’t know how complex those ties can be in this beautifully woven novel of a mother and her child.
A great read! Heartbreaking at times, but rich in pleasures and important questions for mothers, daughters, grandmothers. Will look forward to the next novel from this writer.
Well written and keeps your interest. Jan covers many issues that one wouldn't think about unless you are living in this situation. I really enjoyed it and wish I could sit down with Jan and discuss how she came up with the idea for her first novel. I hope she writes another.
Jan English Leary sensitively explores themes of parenthood, adoption, and race in Thicker Than Blood, never shying away from the uncomfortable realities that make up the business of living. Through multiple perspectives, we meet characters who, though wildly different, share the aching desire to find their place in the world and connect with others. Their efforts to do so and the challenges they face form the basis of this compelling novel.
What a great story. As a new mother, I identified with the protagonist and her struggles to balance her desire for control with her daughter's best interest. It was an interesting read that left me wanting more, I look forward to more from this author!
0 Response to "[HXU]≫ [PDF] Thicker Than Blood Jan English Leary 9781942515128 Books"
Post a Comment