The Memory Keeper's Daughter: A Novel by Kim Edwards
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Book Reviews of The Memory Keeper's Daughter: A Novel
Book Review: Love it or hate it!
Summary: 5 Stars
This strikes me funny. I just thought I'd look over some reviews for this and found the reviews are all very different. One of those love it or hate it books. I have a hard time understanding why! This book is beautiful. Heartbreaking. Wonderful. Sad. It's an actual storm of emotions.
I love novels that sort of teach us things, push our buttons as readers. Get us thinking and discussing. That's just what this book does!
The reader is taken on a journey of Phoebe's life. We start by following an unwanted baby. To a wanted baby, to a growing, learning child. One that happens to have down syndrome. One that one might think wouldn't have a chance in the world, but is given the most precious gift, love! The stuggles of the characters are hard to accept, hard to understand. And that I love! Then ending answers the main questions, or at least I thought it did. But the ending is not the end in this story, and that's what I liked.
A book club must!!
Book Review: Thought provoking - made me realize how we live our life really affects those around us!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's the kind of book that keeps drawing you into the story and characters. I felt so deeply for all of them, Norah, Paul, David, Caroline. How sad to think the choice you made was for someone else's benefit, and you realize years later that God did know best!! How you messed up, the ripple affect, everyone's life changed, all because of a decision, you thought was simple to make at the time, affects all your loved ones and you spend the rest of your life regretting that one moment in time. How different their lives would've been had this little girl been part of their lives! They needed her more than she needed them!!! And Caroline, how she needed her and didn't even know it. Her life changing from single and lonely to rich and full. How empty her life would've been without her!! How empty Norah, David, and Paul's life was without her. Made me realize how important life is, our decisions and our interactions with those we love and those we meet. Could've been real - GOOD STORY!!Book Review: More than Memories
Summary: 5 Stars
Kim Edwards has done more than tell a story in her novel The Memory Keeper's Daughter. She's captured perfectly the heartache caused by secrets kept and vows broken. What particularly impressed me by this author is how her characters are so vivid, so real in the way they live within the limitations of their own making. When Dr. Henry can't face the thought of having a "retarded" child, he does the unthinkable and sends it away, telling his wife Nora the baby has died. He cannot see the despair he has created in his wife with the lie until much later when it is too late to reverse the terrible decision. His nurse Caroline takes the baby and raises it as her own. Edwards does a brilliant job portraying Phoebe who has Down Syndrome. Phoebe is not sentimentalized or stereotyped, but shone throughout the novel to be the real victor from the situation. Edwards novel is haunting, inspirational and deeply poignant. It creates the kind of memories that last long after the last page is read.Book Review: Compassionate, Revealing
Summary: 5 Stars
The choices we make, the truth or lies that we cling to are like invisible threads running through the whole fabric of our lives. These threads connect with the threads of the people we know and love to form webs of influence.
The author skillfully spins a tale that highlights these threads. She does so by balancing the perspectives of the all the participants, allowing the reader to see with sadness and compassion the contradictions.
If this book has a somewhat melancholy tone, it is nonetheless compelling for its accuracy in describing how the inner workings of hearts and minds affect our relationships. It raises some questions very pointedly that the reader can hardly avoid reflecting on: questions about intimacy, trust, what gives a life value and meaning.
If you are looking for a mindless, escapist, fun read, this is not the book for you. However, if you want a book to engage your soul, I recommend it.
Book Review: REDEEMING SINS
Summary: 5 Stars
Exquisite despite tendencies to be verbose, this debut novel of Kim Edwards is touching inasmuch as it explores the pains of errors from the past, miscalculations from the present and uncertainties of the future.
The reading can be slow in its process of breaking through character histories that tend to bog down what one would wish was a better pace of plot. But when events unfold and characters unravel their feelings as a reaction to what defines their lives, the pain that the writer captures becomes incomparable. The love/hate relationships that define parents and their children, the tricks played by fate and the vulnerabilities of men are all too human ... all to real.
There is no such thing as a perfect work ... and because of all its imperfections especially in capturing the human heart and mind, THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER is one of the best reads that leave an undefinable ache after you reach its last sentence.