Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1) by Jan Karon
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Book Reviews of Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1)
Book Review: sweet story
Summary: 4 Stars
this story takes you back to learn the history of Father Tim and what made him who he is. it goes back and forth in time, but it is well told and interesting...Book Review: Home to Holly Springs
Summary: 4 Stars
Wonderful book with slow beginning and then it became very surprising and excellent to the end leaving me to want to read the next book when it comes out.Book Review: Book
Summary: 4 Stars
Book arrived within 3 days of my order. Am giving it as a gift, so haven't read it.Book Review: Too many coincidences
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the first book I've read about the apparently well-known Father Tim. He returns home after an absence of 38 years, after receiving a mysterious letter that simply says "Come home".
The story is well and lovingly told, giving a fine feel for Father Tim's sense of the joy of small town Southern life. To his delight, many of the icons of his childhood, including the old hardware store where he worked as a boy, are still a fixture of the town square. Father Tim himself is a finely drawn and likable character, with the usual doubts and concerns that we all have, but a willingness to try to be open and experience things as they happen. A good person, who you might like to meet.
Father Tim tries to find out who summoned him back. As he investigates, the story moves between the present and the past, and we learn about the people who populated his childhood, and the conflicts that helped form him. There are vivid and interesting characters here.
As the story unfolds in the present, too many coincidences pile up. I won't enumerate them all, so as not to spoil the book for those who do enjoy it. But most of the key characters who are seen in flashback manage to appear by the end of the book, in some amazing circumstances. For example, near the end, the taxi driver who picks up Father Tim after a car breakdown is someone he has been searching for. The number of these makes the story unbelievable.
The other part that was not to my taste was the depth of religious sentiment that was part of the later part of the story. I'm not religious, but will certainly read stories about religious people. However, by the end of this book, much of the decision and plot was resolving around what people felt was God's will. If you find that uninteresting, this book is not for you.
Ultimately, reasonably well told, but with a slight weak plot with a strong religious tone.
Book Review: Karon first timer
Summary: 3 Stars
I suspect that my take on 'Home to Holly Springs' will not sit well with diehard Father Tim readers. But this book is the first of Jan Karon's I have read, so I may have a different opinion. After reading thirty or forty pages of contrived attempts to replicate Black speech phonetically, I was distracted and annoyed. (And by the way, Ms. Karon, business would be pronounced with a "d"...bid'ness)
When Peggy Lambert disappeared, I knew immediately why, and was simply waiting for the big reveal. But the neat "Hollywood ending' tie up of Peggy's whereabouts and the lives of every childhood friend and foe Tim had encountered was simply too pat a resolution to the story. This is definitely a feel-good novel, if that is what you are looking for. But I suspect this is one in a long line of feel-good stories that may leave the discerning reader with the same feeling I began to have about halfway through the Anne Rivers Siddons novels..."Haven't I read this before???" A formula becomes easy to spot after several novels, and any sense of excitement and expectation regarding the resolution for the characters is out the window.