Customer Reviews

Grace

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

 

 

In 1944 in Cold Springs, Texas, thirty-eight-year-old English teacher Grace Gillian does not understand the male of the species, at least those who are not on the front. They seem to admire her yet they avoid her as if she has a contagious disease. Her spouse simply left her without a word of explanation. Her widower neighbor shared a glorious evening with her, but never followed up with even a visit. Teenager Bobby Moore, who wants to join the army, and his father both have desired Grace, but try to hide those feelings especially from the senior's wacky Yankee spouse. Even a sergeant she meets on a train heading east finds he cannot resist the lure of Grace.

Perhaps, the males find the amazing teacher just a bit too flaky for them almost as if she is a flame and they are moths. She daringly reads poetry to her students. Who knows what other wild ideas she might unleash on an unsuspecting man? As the war draws closer to an end, which lucky male will earn Grace's love?

GRACE is a fabulous period piece that brings home life in a small Texas town during World War II. Though the story line centers on Grace, it contains several intriguing subplots that allow the audience a better understanding of her admirers and their need for distance. The key cast members are fully developed either through their respective relationship with Grace or with their own family members. Still, this is Grace's novel and she shines throughout just as much as author Jane Roberts Wood does.

Harriet Klausner

Grace the novel, centers on Grace Gillian, an English teacher in her 30's, living in a small, Texas town, Cold Springs. Grace's husband has recently left her, headed for NYC, and Grace has been left to deal with life on her own. We also meet several other members of the Cold Springs community, Bobby a highschool senior, who deeply desires to be a part of the war effort, the apple of his eye, Dixie, Bobby's family, and a few other side characters. Wood has a real gift for writing, her descriptions are excellent-you can picture each scene perfectly in your mind. Through Grace, we learn how the effects of the war turn life upside down in this small, close-knit community. As you follow the character's lives, you will see what their motivations and deepest desires are, how they all want to be accepted and understood in different forms and different ways. The story was entertaining, but not something that left much of an impression on me. To the author's credit, the writing was excellent (5 stars).

Well, I'm not sure what to make of this book. I thought it was pretty good, but I'd say about 70% of the book was about Bobby Moore and his family and friends, not so much about Grace. I kept wanting to know more about Grace and Bucy and what lead to his leaving her...but no detail was really given, and his response to her asking why was pretty lame.

In fact, almost every problem in this book was solved with a simple answer and a wave of the hand. I wanted more detail about some issues that truley could have been more entertaining had they been a little more in depth.

As for the ending, I don't know how I feel about it. Part of me says...'Well, it COULD have happened that way...I guess'...the other part says...'What the heck?!?!? What kind of ending was THAT! Could she have wrapped it up any quicker?' I don't know, I like the book, it made for a pleasant and thoughtless read just to pass time, but I don't know that I'd really recommend this to anyone I know.

"Grace" follows the lives of four households living on the same block in the small Texas town of Cold Springs during the final years of World WarII. Grace Gillian, english teacher at the local high school, sparks passion for learning and exploration in her students. She presence is unsettling for the town, married later, only to have her husband abandon her, head filled with dreams and impractical things. This woman is a catalyst of sorts in the other households. John Appleby, enlisting in the service after his wife's death, looks to her with confusion and longing. Young Bobby Moore V, drawn by the passion Grace displays as his teacher, and her unselfconscious beauty. His home has currents of its own, his yankee mother snubbed( and not at all bothered)by local woman, befriends the family maid, struggles with the interference of family in her daughter's life. Bobby is drawn to Dixie baldridge, a young beauty with a troubled family life. Her father drinks and her mother is scarred by past trauma that has left her unable to cope. The US is drawn into the war and local young men leave the comforting confines of Cold Springs, life is turned upside down. While this book seems to wander a bit,it is a wonderful book that captures the upheavel in small town life that marked the mid 1940s. The realization that change would impose itself upon life, no matter how careful one was. Each family must face its own and intertwined challenges,closing the doors on hurts and refinding love and figuring out where they fit in Cold Springs

In a departure from her gentle Texas triology, Ms. Woods takes the reader on a passionate and lusty exploration of a sleepy little East Texas town and the final year of WWII. In the four homes on a single block, every household is an entirely different world of mannerisms, of history, of hopes and of dreams. This glimpse into the past provides more than just insight into the times, but also into the thoughts and minds of the individual people and truly a feeling of being there. My only disappointment? That there wasn't a CD in the back cover of the book, with a collection of the music that floats through this memorable story.

Came across this book when a friend recommended it, and like many previous reviewers, I enjoyed it.

It is the story of Grace, a 30ish English teacher in a small Texas town during WWII. The writing has a lovely, bittersweet quality as most of the characters find out that what they were looking for was perhaps not really what they wanted from life. And of course, being set in WWII time period, the war is a constant presence in the characters lives, motivating, changing, and devastating some of them. Perhaps that's why the author chose her ending - to leave the story on an upbeat note.

Overall, an enjoyable book.

I thought Grace was a hard book to get into until about chapter four. Then I really enjoyed until the end. I don't understand or like how she was obsessed with one guy through the whole book and then goes off and marries another man in the end. There just wasn't enough conclusion in this book. Otherwise the writing is well done. You really get to know each character because Jane wrote in third person. Jane has a unique writing style that is hard to get used to at first, but after a while is enjoyable.

I did enjoy the book. I read it for a book club, but might have read it on my own. My biggest problem was the way I met Grace. In the first chapter she has already slept with a man who isn't her husband and on the night of his wife's death. It just put a bad taste in my mouth. I never grew to like Grace Gillian, but I did grow to tolerate her, because I enjoyed the story.

It's been several years since the reading world was "graced" with a work by Jane Roberts Wood. But if we had to wait, this was a wonderful reward for our patience. Grace, the novel, is captivating and only makes me hope that Ms. Wood doesn't make us wait for another work.

I thought I had simply gotten a historical novel set in the mid 1940s. What I got as a bonus was a wonderful story by a very gifted writer. After hearing me rave about it, my wife will start reading it tonight. I can't quite describe why this book affected me so...but the dialog, the people, and the flow of the story was very "real" and very "human".