Tag: Alice Hoffman

books, reading

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

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Another engaging story on the strength of women and their need for self-determination.

First we meet Mia, walking away from all she knows and then we are sent to an other time, much earlier. We meet Ivy, who helps drive the story, even when it is not really about her. Mia takes over the story again, and we follow until there is another time shift. While these shifts are confusing and not at all realistic, they are mystical.

Ivy, a wild child of a rich Boston family, gets pregnant and is slapped when she asks her father for help. She leaves that night, since she has no hope of help from the father of the child, or choices to make over her own body. She joins The Community, a cult with a charismatic leader with a need to rule with an iron fist, only finding his lies after the marriage.  

Mia needs more than The Community can provide her. Through the intervention of her mother, Ivy, she discovers the world of books – something forbidden in The Community. Through these books she finds redemption.

That redemption for me goes a bit wonky when she falls through time to meet Nathaniel Hawthorn, the man who’s book she finds herself in and discovers her own strength. An overriding theme here is that no one saves you but yourself. And that is what ultimately happens.

Well written, enjoyable, but not my favorite of this author’s.

books, reading

While the kids are at camp, I feel…..

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I have just returned home from dropping my kids at camp.  They are gone for the next four weeks.  I am home with the dog, but the house is so silent.  I miss them so much.  I also am relieved that I have the house to myself for now to try and finally get it cleaned and organized.  As parents are dropping their children off, there are so many emotions swirling, you never know what to feel.  The first day for me is always the hardest – I miss them, but feel guilty that I don’t miss them enough.  It was in this state of mind that I finished Alice Hoffman’s Faithful.

At its core, this is a story of what happens in the blink of an eye.  One action sends waves of reactions  that are irrevocable and life changing.  That is what happens when Shelby crashes the car, and her best friend Helene is damaged beyond repair.  Carrying that guilt, Shelby breaks down mentally, and is brought back by the love of her mother and messages sent to her on postcards.  These postcards seem to know what she is thinking and feeling.  And they help her survive.

If this is what you call surviving.  As Shelby learns how to be in the world again, and allows herself to let people into her life, she takes small steps, with Ben Mink, and larger steps, first with stray dogs she “liberates” from a homeless man, then Maravelle and then Maravelle’s children.  As each person makes their way into her life, the protective coating she has created begins to wear thin.  And she begins to care about other people.  When she takes her first steps to choose someone, she makes a mistake with Harper Levy, but learns from this.  All along she feels that she gets what she deserves.

As she continues to make a way toward finding herself, she finds a passion, taking care of animals, and commits to it.  She comes to peace with her mother, who protected her as best she could during the hardest times, and learned that she was someone’s everything – something she never thought she was worth.  And she finds James – the writer of the postcards.

The story is a journey of forgiveness to yourself.  While Maravelle and her kids don’t believe she needs that, it is ultimately Teddy who hears her story due to his pain.  And while Ben can’t understand the pain, he tried to be there, but never really understood.  James, however, lived that pain everyday.

Ultimately what this story told me was that we are our own harshest critic, the least forgiving and the most vicious.  If we could be as kind to ourselves as Helene’s father was to Shelby when she came to say goodbye, it would be a must less self-destructive world.

And so, I will not feel badly for being glad my children are in their happy places, even if that is defined as somewhere without me.  I will embrace the strength I have given them to know they can venture out safely, that I am always here for them to come home to.