Customer Reviews

Greensleeves

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I found this book in my high school library when I was sixteen. Unfortunately, I had to return it, and it never did reappear on the shelves. I'm still scouring second-hand bookstores for it! Anyway, I found it to be well-written and extremely readable, with multi-faceted characters who really did come to life on the page. I particularly identified with Shannon Lightley because I, too, was unfocused and unsure of myself. Seeing her world expand meant that mine could, too. At the same time, it wasn't mushy or sentimental -- just an intelligent, well-told story. Definitely worth reading, even if you're no longer a young adult! Definitely worth bringing back.

I discovered Greensleeves when I was twelve, and it became my favorite book of all time. I read it at least once a year for several years thereafter and revisit it every few years even now. I'm amazed at its influence--a friend who read it recently said she might not have become a lawyer (which she did for the money) if she had read this book when she was a teenager. As for me, I learned more each time I read it, and saw so much of myself in it, from a multicultural background to an uncertain sense of self. I also learned about a great many aspects of life that are just woven into the background of the story, everything from cuckoo clocks to international travel to waitressing to early music, which I now perform. Most of all, the book made me feel that it was okay--better than okay--for me to be who I was. Now I am (among other things) the director of a conference on children's literature and reading Greensleeves once again--thank goodness I finally found it at a Friends of the Library booksale! If anyone would like to form a Greensleeves e-mail discussion group, fan club, whatever...please e-mail me at communicESHAn@prodigy.net.

My daughter and I found this in a library after a three year search. We read about Shannon's need to discover herself and know what she wanted to do after high school not what the different adults in her life wanted her to do. She thought she could play detective and uncover a great conspiracy instead found people who loved and accepted her for who she let them believe she was. This was very enjoyable and like many others who read this in their younger years I had a great desire to find and read this again.

This is by far one of the best young adult fiction books I've ever read. Why don't they republish it? I've also been tempted to steal it from the library!! How many young women could identify with the desire to be someone else for a summer!? Greensleeves is a romantic yet real story. No happy ever after, but still so optimistic and hopeful! One day I hope to be able to justify the cost of a used book...and then I'm loaning it to every young lady who likes to read and has ever felt like she didn't fit in somewhere.

I'm so thrilled to find others who love this book as much as I do! At age 11, it was a romantic glimpse into the future; when I reread it in high school and college, I understood it better each time. I loved the interplay between Shannon and each new person she met, and it was fascinating to see what would happen with each one! I think girls of today could still find something important for themselves in this story - after all, it's still with me at age 39! I'd love for this book to be available to my daughter soon.

I was amazed to see that this book has the same resonance for other readers that it has for me. Publishers, listen up: there's a lot of baby boomers out here who want to purchase this book for our daughters, nieces, or even for ourselves.

I discovered "Greensleeves" as a young teenager, and read it so many times that I know whole passages by heart. Though now well past the "what- shall-I-do-with-my-life?" angst of the college-aged, I retain a deep affection for this book. Shannon Lightley, who tells the story in the first person, has spent her childhood doing what others expected of her, and this is the summer when she finally tries to examine herself and follow her heart. The book is filled with unforgettable characters, each of whom is drawn with such a delicate, sure touch that they are alive: perenially curious, impractical, drifting Sherry; surly, magnetic, self-absorbed Dave Kulka with his passion for weeds; Wynola wistfully dreaming about skydiving; carefully impenetrable Mr. Bruce--and they all reveal wholly unexpected facets as the story develops. Shannon herself comes to realize that she is far more complicated a personality than she feels she ought to be, and her questions about herself and her future have no easy, glib answers. Though there is an intelligent plot involving an investigation into a most unusual will, and an unresolved ending which is slightly frustrating but entirely realistic (where are the tidy endings in life?), in the end it is the people one remembers, for they are as complex, endearing, bewildering, fascinating, and at times exasperating, as you and me. (This book has been out of print for some time, but it's well worth searching for in your library.)

I thought of this book the other day and I decided to look it up. I was sure it was not still in print because I don't think I've ever discussed it with anyone else who ever read it. Imagine my surprise to see so many reviews from other girls who found it and were affected just as strongly. I found Greensleeves while browsing through my virtually unused junior high library. I think the library was next to the nurse's office and that's how I ended up being there with the time to browse. I read it quickly and voraciously and felt bereft when I was finished. Definitely NOT a Disneyesque happy ending, just a real picture of the messiness of life. I loved Shannon and so wanted a nice happy ending for her that the ending haunted me for weeks, and on some level is still haunting me and my messy life today.

This is, without a doubt, my favorite young adult novel. I was lucky enough to pick it up by accident at a library sale when I was 12, and it has as clear and true a portrait of young adulthood for me now as it did all those years ago. I have shared many of the same experiences as the main character, felt the same confusion and heartache, and each time I reread the book it brings to light new aspects of my life and situation. I have loaned it to many friends, and all of them have had the same reaction: we have all been Shannon Kathleen Lightley at one time or another, and this snapshot of her life captures our own perfectly. It is worth tracking down--you won't regret it.

When I first read Greensleeves, I was only about 12 years old and could only vaguely identify with Shannon Lightley. Now years have past, and I am reading it for a fourth time. As I read it I realize that Shannon is me. Compleate a dysfunctional but well meaning family, and no real feel for who I am or was. With a family who was scatterd all over, and so much traveling done at such a young age , I have found a part of myself through this wonderful book. I wish it was still in print so that more people could read it and have an experiance like my own. I highly recommend this book and all of its little tapped wisdom.