Customer Reviews

Innocence

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

 

 

As the title implies, Innocence is about three young women in London, learning about themselves as they leave home for the first time and attend acting school. Fourteen years later, as Evie faces a turning point in her life, she flashbacks to the days of "innocence" that lead her to where she is today.

When she is on the mark, Kathleen Tessaro writes prose you want to roll your tongue around and savour like fine wine. It is dense, delectable and begging to be spoken aloud - "In summer, the fig tree drops its heavy fruit to form a thick, gooey compote on the pavement below..." Her gift is for descriptions that draw you in, setting the mood for her characters, "It's like a house in a Victorian play; overflowing with life, busy with knowledge and experience. Even the dogs lolling about on the oriental carpet are engaged in battles of good versus evil."

I thoroughly enjoyed her debut novel Elegance, but in my mind her sophomore effort, Innocence, is the more fulfilling read. This is most likely due to Evie who, from her impassioned defence of love at eighteen to her contemplation of her co-worker ("Each week, I marvel in fascination at the fragments of R. Fitzroy's life as they unfold before me"), reminds me of myself. Evie's confusion as she stands at the crossroads, unable to make a choice in any direction can find resonance for all of us.

This book received rave reviews in the UK (where I live) and I am shocked at the US reviews. As an English Woman I think the author has captured completely the life of a foreigner in our shores. I devoured this book over Christmas and can't wait for the next one. If you think this isn't good I would love to know what you are reading!

When Evie Garlick left Eden, Ohio for London she dreamed of becoming the toast of the town as a stage actress. However, she never achieves her aspirations settling for teaching as she rationalizes that she gave up ambition to raise her son as a single mom.

Lately she dreams of her late dearest friend Robbie, who came from New York when she did. He lived life to the fullest until he died in a car accident. In her dreams Robbie lectures her to stop using her son to hide from life. He insists she relook over her past lovers and her choices over the past fifteen years and reconsider is that what she truly wanted out of her life. Robbie demands she regain the élan she once had as a teen and dream to love again if she is to live again beyond the identity of single mother.

This is a terrific character study that looks at an individual who sacrificed her dreams to raise her son, but now dreams of what could have been. The key to the tale is that though Evie has regrets, she does not apologize for loving her son. Through Robbie's "reappearance" she wonders if she could have both though his spirit forces her to admit she wasted several years hiding from love. Fans of a powerful and insightful look at a person's psyche will want to read Kathleen Tessaro's fabulous sharp tale of a second chance at living if her everyday heroine finds the courage to go for it.

Harriet Klausner

I just finished this book and I have the feeling that it's going to be one of those titles that just hang around for a while. It's left me with a lot of emotions, the most overwhelming one is that it's a bittersweet story that could be about any of us who have had dreams as teenagers, and then "settled" when things got complicated, or difficult, or life got in the way. It was especially poignant for me because I was a girl from a farm town in Pennsylvania who moved to London myself, and I experienced so much of what these characters did. It made me cry, it made me laugh, it made me angry...all of life was in this story, and I'm so glad that I found it (or it found me).

I loved the way this book flashed betweeen the past and present day. It left you wondering how things turned out the way they did, keeping the mystery alive until the last few pages of the book. I loved the two main characters, Evie and Jake.

My only criticism would be that there were so many supporting characters, it was difficult to keep track of who they were.

This is the first of Tessaro's books that I've read and I'll definitely read another one based onn how much I liked Innocence.

Overall, I loved it and would definitely recommend it.

It seems unfortunate that Kathleen Tessaro's Innocence has been labeled as "chick lit." The book goes far deeper than most of the novels in that genre: Evie Garlick is not a girl who shops and diets while she waits for Mr. Right, but a single mother who's taken some wrong turns and made bad choices and who's now, in her thirties, living a life much smaller than the one her talents deserve. Her flamboyant friend comes back as a ghost to remind Evie of all she's given up and settled for, and this might be a narrative recourse that bothers some people but I think it actually works quite well and never gets too sappy.

I enjoyed Elegance and was glad to read this second novel, where I think Tessaro shows she's grown and matured as an author.

I just finished this book and feel compelled to add my comments. I was totally pulled in to the story, I couldn't wait to see what happened, and I think the lives contained in this story are well representative of what often happens to young, creative people. Not to mention not-so-young mothers struggling with the fine balance of raising children and nurturing their own creative spirit. I think some readers are offended by and feel superior to the characters and that's too bad. American puritanism rearing its ugly head. Whatever, it's their loss, I think this was a great book, very uplifting.

After reading reviews for both Innocence and Elegant on Amazon, I picked both up at my library. Elegant, which got glowing reviews from many readers, was surprisingly awful. I didn't like Louise, the story, or any of the other characters. All around, I found it dull dull dull.

So it was with some hesitation that I read Innocence. It's a longer novel than Elegant, and I was tempted to just return it without reading it. But I'm glad I did read it! I loved this book. It was much, much better than Elegance. The story was interesting, the characters lovable (Robbie, Alex, Jake, Piotr... I liked them all!) and the writing engrossing.

All in all, this book is better than other reviewers would lead you to believe. Maybe if you like Elegance you won't like Innocence.. and maybe if you like Innocence you won't like Elegance. Who knows?

This is not your average Chick-lit fare, although it may come across that way with the cover art.
Evie is an aspiring actress who travels to the UK to further her skills. There, she meets Robbie, a fellow American with some dark secrets.
The book flicks forward and backwards through Evie's 20s and 30s, slowly filling you in on her mistakes and her losses, and although the ending may be too good to be true, this was a true page turner of a novel, and I recommend it for those who want more than a fluffly light girly story.

This book just didn't live up to my expectations. "Elegance", Kathleen Tessaro's first novel, was a book I picked up on a trip to London for the plane ride home and I absolutely loved it. This wasn't surprising, as I am a total sucker for ugly duckling stories, but I found the characters very believable and the story was realistic, hopeful and very enjoyable.

Fast forward about two years when I was getting ready for another overseas trip and I was thrilled to find that Kathleen Tessaro had written a second novel. I scooped it up at the bookstore without even reading the synopsis to see what it was about. I trudged through it, continuously hoping it would get better and it just didn't. I found Evie to be completely unsympathetic, not to mention that she had no character arc that I could discern; she is just stuck throughout the whole book, first by using her relationship with Jake as an excuse to not pursue her "dream" of Julliard and then using her role as a mother as an excuse to not pursue anything at all. She chooses to stay a victim and I have no patience for characters like that. Then, suddenly, she decides she loves Piotr even though they've had only a handful of conversations in the book and there is no clue as to why he loves her, other than the possibility that one of the other characters says to Evie "if I had your face and your figure". So she's cute and that's why he's in love with her?

In the end, the book just felt rather incoherent. None of the characters seem to be complete and the fact that characters in the beginning of the book just disappear and new characters suddenly appear out of nowhere for no real purpose (and then disappear) doesn't help counteract that impression. When I got to the last page, I literally said "are you kidding me?" out loud because I was just so disappointed that I read 439 pages for nothing when there are so many other books out there. I think that a lack of closure and a rather depressing story are frequently seen as great literature but "Gone With the Wind" or "Wuthering Heights" this is not.

One other note is that there are pretty blunt episodes with sex and drugs in this novel.

Because I liked "Elegance" so much, I will probably give this author another shot. She is an excellent writer, which is why I gave this a 3 instead of a 2, but characters and story are just as important to me as the quality of the writing. I just hope "Innocence" is the anomaly and not the rule.