Entering Normal [Import] [Hardcover]

Anne LeClaire (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Orion (July 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752846132
• ISBN-13: 978-0752846132
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ultimately Disappointing, July 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Entering Normal (Hardcover)

The reviews I read of this book made me very anxious to read it, as I too have lost a child and knew that I'd certainly be able to relate to the feelings of the grieving mother, Rose. Being drawn to this book because of Rose, I was intrigued about her life, the course of her grief over her son and the development of this unlikely friendship between her and Opal. Though the description of Rose's grief rang true to me, I felt that the book, as a whole, was full of holes, poorly developed characters and a faulty, contrived plot line. Though I finished it, I didn't really feel, by the end, that I knew Rose and Opal at all or that I understood who they were deep in their souls or why they would even be drawn to each other as friends, other than because of the surface circumstances of their lives. Opal was a truly botched character, and somehow she never came together for me as someone who was sympathetic in any way. She was angry and full of rage about her childhood, her family and Billy, she took lots of this rage out on Ty, I couldn't feel the development of anything true and real between them besides lust and sex...and she shared her rage with almost every character in the book with her charming (?) attitude. (All of her supposedly humorous self-talk about others in the book became really annoying to me after about the second time...and the book was loaded with these stupid, unfunny, private glimpses into Opal's feelings about people!) Also, though I am a really good cusser who is not offended by much, I felt that her sailor's mouth was way overdone. Rose also suffered from the same lack of character development, I thought, and was a shadowy and foggy figure throughout whom we didn't get to know in any substantive way, either. And the ending was almost unbearable to me. It was so contrived, tucking in all the loose ends and coming up with a neatly wrapped package of unreality and illusion that left me with feelings of "Oh, right!" and "Come on, Anne Leclaire, do you really expect us to believe this?" This book was, ultimately, a major disappointment for me and a major waste of my cherished reading time. I do see lots of 5 star ratings for this book, though, and I am very puzzled and wondering: Did we all read the same book? If so, I must certainly have missed something!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking down the walls of the heart, January 25, 2002

By 

Paula Hess (Iowa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Entering Normal (Hardcover)

I was a little disappointed to see so many people did not like this book. I for one found it to be one of the best I have ever read. Two mothers who have built emotional walls around their hearts concerning their children. Opal the young mother who may lose her son simply because she doesn't fit the mold of a perfect mother. Rose who lost her teenage son five years ago in an accident that she feels is her fault. These two have both built a wall around themselve that they find in the end has to be overcome. Rose is finally able to come to terms with how deep she has fallen into despair and that life does hold another chance for her. Opal learns that you can trust and I think that is all this book needed to say in the end. Entering Normal the perfect title for a great book.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking, July 19, 2001

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Entering Normal (Hardcover)

This book managed to keep me occupied for hours on a plane, always the mark of an engaging story to me!

"Entering Normal" is the story of emotional and painful times in the lives of two very different women, but it never descends into angst, nor do the main characters ask for pity.

Rose is 50 and lost a son, her only child, in a car accident five years ago. Opal is 20 and is running away from her controlling family and the father of her five-year old son when she rents a house next door to Rose's. How these two women *rescue* each other, emotionally and otherwise, is the topic of this novel.

Rose has been consumed by grief for five years because of her imagined guilt. Opal is trying to keep custody of her child. The bond of motherhood brings these women together and allows them to help each other in ways that neither would have imagined.

Anyone who has experienced the joys and sorrows of parenthood will be able to relate to these sentences :"Watching him, she feels a familiar jolt in her stomach, the sharp, sweet terror of motherhood." "Having a child is like having your heart walk around outside of your body, bumping into things."

Rose tries to write what she feels, keeping this a secret from her husband, Ned, who cannot manage, despite his best efforts, to penetrate her grief. Le Claire writes: "She wrote all about Todd and how she missed him and how one minute a person could be in your life, laughing and smiling and driving you crazy with their foolishness, and then the next, with no warning, they were gone and all the words you never got a chance to say would be locked up inside you, and what ever happened to words locked inside, where did they go?" Food for thought.