Customer Reviews

God-Shaped Hole

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a love story. A true, dyed-in-the-wool love story for the twenty first century. This love story is depicted realistically, with the young woman protagonist making bad choices based on who she is and where she came from rather than a glossed-over, Hollywood version. For these reasons, this book rocks!

Beatrice "Trixie" Jordan was only twelve when a carnival fortune teller predicted that she would meet her soulmate, only to lose him to tragedy. That portentious pronouncement follows Beatrice into adulthood.

A jewelry-artist with her star on the rise, Beatrice meets Jordan Grace, a man two years her senior. It's immediately apparent that the pair's trajectories are following the same arc. And for the reader, an excellent tension-builder, for we know that this is Beatrice's doomed soul mate. Their lives together makes both of them more happy than they've ever been...and we know that a love like theirs happens rarely. That's why we want that long-ago fortune teller to be wrong, for their love to prevail over all.

When a story is so well-written that it engages my emotions on an incredibly deep level, deep enough for me to get angry at Beatrice for being such a fool...I know the writer has me hooked.

Tiffanie DeBartolo does an excellent job of making her characters believable and complex, with tough choices that ultimately affect their lives in profound ways. "God Shaped Hole" is one of those books that only comes along once a decade--but manages to remain in the hearts of anyone who is lucky enough to have read it. Buy this today!

I can't begin to express how deeply this book effected me. I yelled at the text; I let my tears slide down my face to the pages below. Tiffanie DeBartolo has written an amzing work. The reader knows head on that the protagonist is headed for heartbreak and misery. Still, it's impossible to put the book down. The two main characters are plausible, and most people could relate them to others in their lives. These are characters that have a deepseated need for eachother, but for reasons unknown, must be seperated. We all search for someone or something to fill the Hole within us. This book takes a look at how another person can fill that space and leave a chasm when taken away.

there's nothing like a love story to polarize reviewers. but
to those of you who gave only one or two stars, i have to ask
you: are you jealous? do you wish you were as cool as jacob
grace? or as sensitive and funny as beatrice jordan? i have
to think so, because GOD-SHAPED HOLE is a superfly love story.
it hits it all: the laughter, the joy, the love, the feelings
of there-is-nothing-else-like-this-on-earth, the agony, the
bitterness, the growth, the heartbreak, and then--finally,

painfully--the feelings of loss and grief.

it is a book that will make you exhilarated with the thrill of romance and the possibility of happiness. who doesn't want to
hear about this? who doesn't want to hear about it from a writer who is nuanced and hip and totally, totally honest?
i don't know. maybe you one- and two-star people out there
will be happy waiting for the end of the world with a copy of BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL in your hand. maybe that will comfort your heart. but me, i'll take GOD-SHAPED HOLE.

I usually sit down and write reviews for books immediately after finishing reading them. This one completely dropped from my memory as soon as it was out of my hands. Well, not entirely. I DO remember how much I didn't like it! It's been over a week since I finished it, and I forced myself to write this review simply because I felt I had to balance out all the positive reviews here. I am actually shocked that there are so many! I guess fans of chick lit would like this book. Unfortunately, I found it completely shallow and a waste of both time and paper. It was my book club selection, which I always (well, almost) finish, so I did force myself to sit through this whole book even though I wanted to chuck it aside for most of the time. How many times can we read about sex? I'm no prude, and the occasional sex scene or innuendo here and there is fine. Here, though, it's ALL she writes about; if she deleted all the sexual references from this novel she'd have a short story!!! I hated the main character, and hoped that there would a "twist" from the outcome forecasted on the cover and that SHE would die instead of her "soul mate." I guess you'll have to read it to find out. Personally, I think the author was trying too hard to seem smart and deep. Unfortunately, I don't think she is either.

I work in a major retail book store. My job is to open up all the boxes and sort them by subject matter. It's rare when a book catches my eye enough to stop me dead in my tracks. Let me just tell you that I'm one to revel in self-inflicted torture (you would too if you had my job), and the idea of a book where one's true love would die an early death seemed like just the thing I needed to entertain myself for a while.

Plus the cover of the book had a hole in it.

Tiffanie was able to grasp probably the greatest of all the emotions, force it into submission, and show what true love is really all about through the life and times of Trixie and Jacob. This is darkly humorous, rated right up there and even higher still with all the Chuck Palahniuk books on my booklist. Higher only because I can actually see this happening. It's so much more than what the catch phrase revealed. Sure, it gives away the ending, but this book isn't about tragedy. You will laugh. Cry. Hate. Love. It's about living in the now. It's about going after what makes the soul flow. It's about the carrot that life dangles infront of your face in a teasing manner. It's about finding the next fix to jam into our hungry veins to appease a universal craving of love.

It's about time you read the book.

This is all I have ever wanted in a comfy, curl up, read in the rain or shine book. It is like inviting friends over and reading their diary.

If you've ever been madly in a love that you feel only you can understand, or if you have ever dreamed of being, the words will speak to you. The characters are real and their situations easy to relate to. The dialogue is that of any one in the 25-35 (give or take of course) age grouping and the plot flows so well that even the inevitable ending became a surprise for me.

The biggest shock of all were the real tears that I shed reading . Why tears? You'll have to find it out for yourself. Read this book, pass it on to a friend (but get it back!)

Tiffanie DeBartolo's God-Shaped Hole is an interesting, well-paced first novel with great characters and lots of emotion. Using a contemporary, slightly (sometimes very) jaded voice in the form of her main character, Beatrice (or "Trixie") Jordan, the book explores themes of longing, loss, childhood pain and the effects it has on us all as adults, finding one's place in the world, and finally true love, and how it fits into one's life if it only lasts for a time, and not forever, as each and every one of us hopes.

As for the narrator's voice (and that of the main character), those who appreciate Daria's caustic wit on the MTV sitcom of the same name will feel right at home here.

Trixie finds her love through a personal ad in the Weekly, where her future flame works. The ad reads, in its entirety, 'If your intentions are pure/I'm seeking a friend/For the end of the world.' One look at the ad, & Trixie has a feeling she has just found her soul mate. And right she is.

Jacob Grace (who anyone who knows anything about the book will know was based on musician Jeff Buckley -- allusions to him and his life run throughout the book, his lyrics are echoed in DeBartolo's prose, and Buckley's 1994 album was called Grace) even looks a bit like Buckley, beautiful, sensitive, with thoughtful, kind eyes, and a deep, yearning soul. He is just what Trixie has been looking for, the antithesis of LA, a vessel of hope for her future, for something *real.*

Jacob and Trixie find love together in the ruins of LA, and both are counting the days until they can leave together, she a talented, up-and-coming jewelry designer, he a fiction writer biding time at the local paper til he finishes his latest creation, the aptly titled, "Hallelujah." (Hallelujah is also a song written by Leonard Cohen which was covered on Buckley's hit 1994 album, Grace.)

DeBartolo gets points from me for one for her musical references, (the first thing the two buy each other on their first 'date' are Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and a Miles Davis jazz record, swapping new music definitely a good way to get into each other's hearts, and into mine as a reader, and such good taste!)

And for her portrayals of the hapless souls of Beatrice and Jacob, dancing about the fire of love like moths to a flame.. they need it, they want it, they've been waiting all their lives for it, for each other, and to escape the soulless town they find themselves living in. But will it be too much? Will it overcome them in its intensity? They are yin and yang to each other, and striking a balance and finding a healthy middle ground between them, a healthy relationship, will be difficult.

They spend their time loving one another, rapt in the happy glow of having found such a similar soul in the world, and in planning their getaway, to Memphis, Tennessee, where they both dream of a simple life-- an old, Victorian rambling house, complete with porch, and having children of their own to tend to, one boy, one girl, and a swingset in the yard. That's their dream, simple enough, but realizing it will prove more complicated than either of them imagine.

Some potential problems are the appearance of Jacob's ex, a former drug user, and both of their father issues. Beatrice's dad abandoned her family early on with a string of affairs, and left her and her mother forever wounded. And Jacob's father, the famous writer Thomas Doorley, similarly abandoned Jacob and his mother when he was young, a fact which he too has yet to come to terms with, and one which has a significant impact on his daily life, even as an adult. (The character of Thomas Doorley also has some similarities to Jeff Buckley's life.. for instance, Jeff's father was the famous '60's folk musician Tim Buckley, and he had a song called 'Morning Glory,' (the name of Thomas Doorley's book in the novel.))

How they cope with their past ghosts, and very real (and to a certain extent, quite understandable) fear of abandonment and of everything falling apart, their fear and mistrust of simple contentment and happiness, is what drives the story.

I recommend this book to fans of Buckley, and to lovers of young-hearted, hiply-written, art, music, and soul-tinged fiction. Even the title refers to a U2 song lyric, and I recently heard a song which was itself called God-Shaped Hole (it appears on the Bruce Almighty film soundtrack). So the book itself may be spawning its own musical references, bringing things somewhat full circle in the art imitating life imitating art category. Let's hope DeBartolo (a former screenwriter) has another book in the works, as her fresh voice and moving fiction writing have made God-Shaped Hole an overall successful debut. Recommended.

I absolutely couldn't put this book down!! Tiffanie DeBartolo does a phenomenal job of painting a beautiful and rich picture of soulmates and true love. Her characters, Jacob and Trixie are totally charming-- readers will fall in love with them immediately. I felt like I truly knew and cared about both of them, and was right there with them on their soulful journey. The story is told with such wonderful humor and heart, and I just did not want the book to end. I truly recommend reading God Shaped Hole and I can't wait for Tiffanie's next book!! She is a rare and talented writer.

Well enough people have raved about this book. It was so beautifully written and so poignant. Exceptional. I might add that having lived in LA I found the descriptions of places - from Fred62(the place where Trixie and Jacob meet) to the Santa Monica Farmers Market; to the "pricey restaurant down on Ocean Avenue" (p.109)... was it Ivy at the Shore? And when Trixie and Jacob were at the City Lights bookstore in SF I felt like I was with them. This book was heaven to read and savor. Read it now!
You won't regret it.

This modern day love story brought out all of my emotions. I was happy, intrigued, exciting, eager, sad, etc. Anyone can relate to this novel. I could not put the book down, it absorbed me, I became part of the novel. Since I finished it, I have not been able to find anything that compares to it, all I want to do is read it again and again. After reading it you can email the author, and she actually takes the time to write you back, she is so sweet. I am sure everyone who has read it has been on her tail to write more, I know I have! I recommend it to anyone, just make sure you have time to read it, because you won't want to put it down. It honestly left me feeling incredible. Buy it now!