Customer Reviews

Enter Sandman

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was written by a 33-year old with breast cancer. It has a fast-paced, captivating plot. The protagonist's transformation at the end of the book from a young woman to a "terminal cancer patient" is very powerful, with important messages about friendship, sense of self, communication and the universal desire to leave a meaningful legacy. The reader will walk away from the book with a deeper understanding of what it takes for a young woman to come to terms with cancer and dying, while also admiring its author for having the strength to write a great first novel while battling this disease.

Okay, so it gets off to a slow start, and the author was not a soaring lyricist. But it really does pick up steam midway through, and it packs a wallop at the end. The two main characters are artfully drawn, and as the plot narrows down to the two of them, the story becomes quite lovely. Add to that the author's personal narrative, in that she was literally racing her own death to publish this novel, and there is quite a lot to recommend 'Enter Sandman'.

This book opens with basic, choppy language and a rather dull plot. There is little eloquence or poetry in the words, but the author nevertheless gets her point across. Not only does the plot thicken as the book progress, but the author's use of language becomes somewhat more sophisticated as well. This novel isn't destined for any literary awards, but would make good beach or other light reading.

Here's the plot synopsis of Enter Sandman, which is taken from the inside flap of the dustjacket; while Amazon has yet to furnish this information for prospective readers, I thought it might be helpful:

"Trisha Portman seems to have a magical life: good looks, a dream job at a hot Soho art gallery, a handsome lawyer boyfriend, devoted friends. But she¹s still waiting for her big break. One day a mysterious painting arrives at the gallery. Instead, it takes her on a disturbing odyssey.
 

Her search for the anonymous artist brings her back to her college days and to James Morales, who is contemptuous of her and the rest of the world. His artistic brilliance is exceeded only by the lengths he will go to make people dislike him including, for some unfathomable reason, refusing to use his gift.
 
Fate had thrown this pair together in college, and now their prickly relationship resumes in New York City. Yet everything changes once Trisha takes a step into James's tormented life. Not only does she find an unlikely soul mate, but she soon becomes more like this man she once detested when she suffers a life-changing misfortune of her own. Stephanie Williams, in this unforgettable first novel, explores the tyranny of the superficial, the power of friendship, and the mystery of what people choose to leave behind."

This type of book is typically not my scene at all. I am a rather avid reader but have strange habits (compared to other avid readers). The most notable of these is that I only read one book at a time (never more than one simultaneously). Being male I typically read the adventure/action novels by the likes of Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy, or Dan Brown.

So you might ask why did I read this book? A few days after losing a uncle and then a close friend to cancer (a few days later), I found myself reading a time magazine cover story about dealing with death and terminal illness. In the article, it mentioned Stephanie Williams and her final project; "Enter Sandman". At this time I was rather destrout and thought the novel might be beneficial to me and my emotional state.

Being my first (what you might consider) "chick-flick" book, it took me a few chapters to get used to the writing style. However, while the book is prude (not for anyone under 16 I would say), and jumps around every couple chapters of so, this was not uncomfortable for me as the reader to follow at all.

Finally, I just want to say that the book is very uplifting if given the poper amount of time, leaves everyone with an urge to question themselves and what they want out of life. Many books have made laugh out loud but this was the first to actually make me cry. I highly recommend it.

Finally, in case some of you are wondering, the title is in fact a reference to the Metallica song.

I really wanted to love or like this book. And it is a valiant effort...other reviewers have perhaps not mentioned that the author wrote it while suffering from terminal breast cancer. She died this past summer. It is a major achievement that she got this book out.

I'm interested in cancer and the issues surrounding people who die from it, as my mother did five years ago. But this novel somehow didn't really affect me much. It didn't get at the horror and pain I saw first hand, and instead of understanding what my mother went through better, I felt like maybe this book wasn't really that worthwhile.

It veers between three eras: when the heroine Trisha is in college, when she is a young curator in NYC; and finally, when, in her mid 30s, she's is dying of breast cancer. In attempting to link these eras, Williams creates a rather lightweight, inconsistent heroine. The prose is pretty awkward, and there are many cliches. I just wish it had really touched me, because Williams's own life and death story sure does.

I have a hate-love relationship with this book. I am plowing through it but don't really like it. I can't stop reading it, but the characters don't speak to me at all. The writing is pretty sloppy, the story skips around in a hard-to-follow manner, the language is pretty raw (and I am no prude). I'm 2/3 through and haven't run into the cancer thing yet, but I doubt it will improve my poor impression of this book. Sorry.

As a fellow breast cancer survivor diagnosed at 34, I am looking forward to reading this book. I highly suggest every young woman to at least sign it out from the library to acquaint themselves with how breast cancer effects young women. It is much more common in young women than most of us think. I certainly didn't expect to be diagnosed w/o any risk factors. I also have a 31 yr friend in Stage 4, when is incurable.