Customer Reviews

The House

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a licensed psychotherapist with an MFA in creative writing, Anjuelle Floyd is a master at delving into her characters' psyche, thereby entwining the reader in their thoughts and feelings. As Anna, the ever-faithful wife, wavers between wanting a divorce and caring for her dying husband, we are transfixed by her internal dialogue.

The "House" represents both the hearth and the heartache of a family torn by the husband/father's long absences and cheating.

Those interested in the turmoil generated by parents and children and husband and wife in the wake of a family member's terminal illness will appreciate the author's ability to stir our emotions.

Anna Manning wants a divorce. She's asking for freedom from Edward's philandering and emotional abuse he's given her for over thirty years. After more than a year of fighting, he finally gives her all she wants--a divorce and freedom to sell their house.

But Edward's changed, diminished, he's dying and has nowhere to go. In an unexpected move that shocks her to the core, Anna decides to hold off the divorce and bring Edward home--to die. Edward's illness and Anna's decision cause each of the characters to reflect on their own lives, meeting their own personal demons and conquering them.

Anjuelle Floyd has a unique voice. At times, she confronts adversity, at others, embraces it. Her character studies astutely, but lovingly, reveal the inner workings of the human heart. Exposing them, she invites us to accept them for what they are. By the conclusion of "The House", each of the characters has made the difficult transition from anger and denial, to acceptance.

"The House" is a beautiful, lyrical story of grief, acceptance and love. I highly recommend it and her other book, "Keeper of Secrets...Translations of an Incident" for those who enjoy exploring the human heart.

What would you do if you learned that the person you were divorcing is dying?" This question on the back of the book was enough to capture my attention instantly.
Truly, every moment of reading this book has been worthwhile; infact The House is one of the best novels have read in a while. It is one of those captivating books that touch you and remain with you for a long time. I savored every moment of reading this beautifully written novel.
Anna Manning has finally been able to get a divorce from her husband, Edward. Not only has he agreed to a divorce but also agreed to give their house to her. Anna is instantly suspicious. Having known Edward all these years, she is unable to believe that Edward can changed his mind so easily. Is there an ulterior motive behind it?How can he so easily agree after refusing to sign the divorce papers all this time?
As the book progresses, we find the answer. "The House" where Edward and Anna built their lives and their family was one that anyone would dream of having. They had all the material comforts , they were rich and had status. But were they happy?
Most people equate wealth with happiness. This book negates this very notion. You may have all the material possessions in the world, yet you can still be unhappy and dissatisfied. You just want more and more and more but its never enough.
A house is empty and hollow unless you fill it with love. It maybe filled with expensive things, yet it will remain hollow without love.
Anna builds her life around her husband and children. She is devoted to them , loves them with all her being and takes care of "The House." What she never gets back in return is the love she so desperately craved for, from her husband.
Edward gives Anna all the material comforts and riches, but he is endlessly unfaithful, uncaring and hardly ever stays at home. As a consequence , Anna is left alone, to take care of their children. On the outer surface she would have appeared have a perfect life that anyone would envy , but inside she was torn apart.
After years of devotion and sacrificing , without getting anything back in return, Anna has one chance of happiness. She meets Inman, a man who loves her and her only wish is to get divorced soon. She wants to live again. But as fate would have it, Edward is diagnosed with cancer and Anna can't bring herself to get through with the divorce.
Despite the fact how horrendously she is treated by Edward, she decides to sacrifice her dreams for a new life ,to be with the man who ruined her life, in his last few months. You may ask why would she do that. As the novel progresses, understanding dawns and you find the answer.
The novel starts with a quote - "All hold regret, and are seeking forgiveness. Our salvation rests in the hands of others, most particularly the ones whom we love the most, and who have treated us wrongly." This is what the book is about - forgiveness, redemption and coming to terms with things that have hurt you.
It requires endless strength to forgive someone who has wronged you. So filled with hate, we are unable to look beyond or move forward. But this very hate destroys us. Peace and happiness can only be achieved when we are free from the anger, the hatred, burning in our hearts. We can only heal from our past hurts, when we are able to forgive and let go of the anger. There is a quote I like which applies here - "The hatred you're carrying is a live coal in your heart - far more damaging to yourself than to them."
Acceptance and forgiveness is never easy, but once we are able to do that, we are able to achieve true salvation. The House captures this beautifully. There are several twists and turns which make the novel even more readable and compelling. As the story moves forward, we feel for Anna and eventually , even Edward. We live their pains, their anger and ultimately their salvation.
The House is an emotional read that will stir your heart and linger in your mind long after the last page is over.
Overall:
Haunting, heartbreaking and captivating.
Recommended?
Yes! To everyone who loves beautifully written and insightful novels.

For Anna Manning, truer words were never spoken. In her novel, THE HOUSE, author Anjuelle Floyd chronicles Anna's life in the wake of a pending divorce from a philandering husband, and the subsequent discovery of his catastrophic illness. For Anna, who wants to sell the house she has shared with her husband Edward for some thirty years, the house is no longer a home and has every potential for becoming her prison. Faced with newly shifting facts in her life and the emotional tumult wreaked by her four children, their assorted "significant others," and a lover she is occasionally unwilling to access, Anna struggles to become whole and to simply understand the cage her marriage had become.

In her struggle, Anna elects to forego her contentious divorce when she learns of Edward's terminal illness. Instead of taking her freedom and running off to the Parisienne dream she has secretly nourished, she puts her lover and her plans aside and brings Edward back to the home they once shared as man and wife. Believing that he should be allowed to finish his life with dignity and the support of family, Anna decides to stand by a man who never stood by her when she offered her love and fidelity. Nobody understands her choice - not even Anna herself.

Divesting himself of secrets, Edward's personal growth and repentance for his wandering ways during their marriage as he moves toward the end his life only leaves Anna with more questions. Chief among her questions: why did it happen, and how did I fail? The behavior of her children, under the stresses of family ties torn by death, infidelity, money, fractured marriages, and inevitable emotions leave her pulled in more directions than she ever anticipated.

And the complications don't end there. Linked to her lover, Inman, Anna discovers more secrets, twists, and fraying emotional fabric enmeshing those she loves. Forced to confront everything she holds dear leaves her questioning and then rebuilding her faith in her family and her life. Coming out on the other side of death and loss, Anna must find a way to free herself from the chains that bind her to the house and to heal her family in the process. If there is a lesson to be learned in THE HOUSE, it is that living a half-life based in half-truths, fear, pain, emotional abandonment, and childhood fears realized in adulthood can most certainly become a prison.

In telling this tale, Anjuelle Floyd uses a lyrical style and eloquently sensitive language, while drawing heavily on her experience as a psychotherapist and a wife. Her care and concern for her characters and her story are evident, and the reader will readily identify with - though maybe not always like - the people who inhabit THE HOUSE.

Anna Manning intends to be free from her unfaithful husband, Edward Manning, but he is stalling to avoid granting her a divorce. Their four children are grown and all Anna wants is to move on with her life and pick up with her dream to move to Paris and continue her study of the art treasures of Rome, Greece, and Northern Africa and the masterpieces housed in the Louvre and other museums and around Europe. That dream had died when fresh out of college she met and married Edward in order to escape her mother's cruel assessment of her. To do so, Anna needs to sell the house that served as living quarters for her and the kids while Edward was away on business and carousing with other women during their thirty four years of marriage.

While the book focuses on the lives of an African-American family, it brings a common message to every reader regardless of background--we all have emotional stuff to deal with, and until we deal with it, healing cannot occur. How we deal with our baggage sometimes defies logic. When Anna learns that Edward is dying of cancer, her plans change drastically. She puts her dream on hold again and asks Inman, her new lover, to give her some time to sort things out. She takes her sick husband under her wing and moves back into the house with him to care for him in the few months he has left to live.

An intriguing plot and surprises that make the reader gasp, The House is a story that touches the heart with believable, true-to-life characters that you will either fall in love with or feel anger toward. One of the best novels I've ever read.

I received my copy of the House by Anjuelle Floyd from the author with a request for an honest review, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it. The blurb on the back cover asks the intriguing question, "What would you do if you learned the person you were divorcing is dying?" The question itself begs the retort, how could you not know? And the novel tells the tale.

The house, the safe place, the roof over a family's head, and the security long-hoped for, long-denied, becomes the center of the answer to the second question. There are so many things we don't communicate with those we love; things we don't know and events we see only through the eyes of our own past hurts; so many places where we fail to touch the heart of what's really meant.

The author's experience as a licensed psychotherapist gives depth to all her characters, drawing meaning and lessons from their deepest flaws, and inserting hope into the cruelest wounds. The House is definitely not a quick read. There's no untimely rabbit going to jump out of this hat. But patience to get to know the characters is rewarded with insights into our own motivations. Right and wrong are tempered with hurt and healing. The present, born of past hurts, is healed by past memories till it's strong enough to hold the future. Forgiveness, through the words of a priest, the writings of a Buddhist nun, the proverbs of Africa, and the inevitability of death, brings its promise of healing. And intimacy, however short-lived and long-hoped for, proves a powerful gift.

I'm probably too much of a mathematician to like coincidences. At times the tangled threads of these characters' inter-relationships pushed me away. But the whole is bigger than its parts and I did enjoy the novel. I've found some of its characters staying rooted in my mind, some of their lessons rubbing off as I look at the people I love, and I'm glad I got to read it.

The House weaves a complex and often painful story of the trials of marriage, especially where there is the betrayal of infidelity. It also shows how that betrayal seeps into the spirit and future relationships of not only the man and woman but the children who must witness the isolation and pain that the act of betrayal can cause. Children learn how to navigate the world and their relationships through their parents. The Manning's adult children: Serine, Theo, David and Linda are no exceptions.

A great read, especially for mature readers, who can empathized with the layers of complexities in the story based on lived experiences.

`For the past year, Edward and his attorney had fought Anna's request for a divorce. Edward had canceled three times in the last month of the proceedings. As a result, her realtor had lost potential buyers for the house she and Edward had shared. Time is money and money is time. That's what Edward, as a realtor, always said. Now, as Anna's soon-to-be ex-husband, he was squandering away her time and money. Anna had entered the divorce process certain that Edward would welcome the end of their marriage. Now, fifteen months later she had grown weary of fighting to sell the house. `

`Inside the conference room, Anna took her seat next to Henderson. Edward and his attorney, Bryce Withers, sat across from them. Edward gave Anna a faint smile then turned to Bryce who slid the open folder to Henderson. "As you can see, everything's signed," Bryce said. "Everything's in order," Henderson said as he closed the folder. "And what about the house?" "I've signed over the house to Anna," Edward said. "It's hers." Anna remained dazed by the turn of events. "Something's not right," she said.'

All Anna wanted to do was divorce Edward and sell the house they had built to raised their 4 children in and move to France. After 30 years of being married to a man that provided wonderfully for the family but couldn't stay true to his marriage, she had had enough. But after spending 15 months of trying to get Edward to sign the divorce papers as well as allow her to sell the house, splitting the proceeds, his sudden turn of heart brought up a red flag for Anna. This just wasn't like Edward and she was determined to find out what made him change his mind. What she found to be the reason for him agreeing to her demands, would forever change not only her life but the lives of their children as well.

We are all aware of the problems that arise from a broken marriage, but as I read The House, it made me aware of the real damage to the children that can be brought on by infidelity in a marriage. There can be and probably are many effects that the kids from broken homes can carry into their own marriages. In The House, Anjuelle Floyd takes a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife from the beginning. She gives them 4 kids and then a disaster that will either bring the family closer together or completely tear them apart. I can only pray that if I'm ever put into the position of Anna that I have the faith and courage to do just as she did in dealing with not just a broken marriage but also in dealing with broken adult offspring. This was a very well written and enlightening book.

Anjuelle Floyd's first novel, "The House", and her sophomore work, opens up with the divorce legal proceedings of Anna and Edward. Shortly later, Anna discovers Edward in the hospital for a deadly disease--cancer. How can a woman be furious in the proceedings and then welcome the same man in her home to take care of him in his last three months of life? I had to see where the author is going with this--some would say, "dying" and "divorce" doesn't mix where one would see this as an "option" to be there for someone who is dying and filing a divorce. Edward had adulterous affairs during their marriage, and makes one wonder why. The author, Anjuelle, later examines and shares why he had these affairs on his wife, Anna.

Edward Manning believes as long as he's the provider and met these requirements as a husband by providing a "home" and "financial stability" for his wife and family is all that matters. While Anna feels that she only wanted to "love" her husband, Edward, and have a family would seal the deal in the marriage. The house is what kept them and divided them as a married couple. House divided is also mentioned in the Scriptures: Mark 3:25; Luke 11:17; and Matthew 12:25.

Anna was also willing to put all the burdens of her children and Edward onto her--needs to release and accept her feelings for Inman. Ironically, she saw Edward in her children: David and Serine, also her daughter-in-law, Millicent. All the negative things she assumed about Millicent, amazingly, secrets were revealed and Millicent named her twins after the two people she truly admired: Anna and Inman. Anna would have never imagined the misconceptions she had about her daughter-in-law and to name her twin daughter after her.

Overall, this novel is well-written and character-driven. It's a contemporary, family-relationships story that you could read and enjoy from the first page until the very end. Look out for this author.


*Dream 4 More Reviews received a copy of "The House" by the author.

Dream 4 More Reviewer,
Adrienna Turner
Sweet Dreams!

Like some others who wrote reviews here, I too received a book from the author, with a request to review it. I agreed to review The House because the plot appealed to me. I was in an unhappy marriage for most of 29 years, until my husband died of cancer. I understood the plight of Anna Manning. The book cover is very attractive and drew me in.

But I have to be honest, I could write a glowing review, but it would be hypocritical. I found the book tedious to read. My first thought was that the author needed to separate the writer from the psychotherapist. Too much of the first half of the book reads like family therapy. Anna does too much analyzing of what did that mean, and which pigeon-hole do I put this child because he is like this other person. Too many scenes are cluttered with who is sitting where and what they are eating. And when the grandchildren arrive they are always named by three names and placed in their respective spots in the room.

The plot moves like the daytime soap operas that I last watched in the 1970's. If you missed a few weeks and came back, you could pick up the story because Anna has to tell Theo what she told Linda, and then she analyzes the reaction of each of them and starts charting their lives from that point on.

It's difficult to read a book when I don't like the characters. Anna is judgemental of everybody, until in the end she judges herself as well. Why does she go around slapping people, and only Inman has the sense to deflect her hand. Inman is the only character I like, and he doesn't have a story to tell until the last third of the book. How could Anna sleep with the man and know so little about what he does for a living?

When Anna goes to Paris it is as if she dropped into a black hole. I was eager to hear how a woman who had spent her whole life taking care of family would adjust to living alone in a foreign country. I wondered if her dream of working in a museum would ever materialize, but there was nothing of that.

I had to force myself to complete the book, because I promised to review it. When I wrote the author with my honest opinion, she insisted that I post my review to show all sides. It has taken me three months to post this review.