Customer Reviews

Island Justice

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

 

 

This is a great read...especially for anyone who is either a "summer renter" or a "year rounder" at any coastal or vacationing spot.

The true character of social behavior is revealed throughout this story. It reminds me of small town, Anywhere, USA taking a deep look into ourselves and our role in society.

I was very disappointed with the last ten pages and ending. The book was a "can't put down" read bringing all the characters to their moral and immoral peaks, but was let down by the indecisive ending for some of the characters. (i.e. "Anna Craven"). Most of the story shifted (and very well written) to her and her abusive husband, and I was captivated by how she would end up either a victim forever or free from abuse and an idol for women alike. Neither happened, she was just left unaccounted for (although Al got a good send-off).

Winthrope had my attention on the issue, and then dropped the ball on what would have been resonant for all abusive situations, physical or mental.

Elizabeth Winthrop uses an island setting to examine a group of people and their ties to one another, both good and ill. She builds the interlacing relationships among families, from within and in their interactions with other families, beautifully evoking the insecurities and needinesses of teenagers, as well as the tensions, baggage, and hopes of adults in this community.

The island's occupants are a varied group who reflect the problems and malaise of America everywhere: a troubled family poisoned by the vicious dominance of its father, who is also the sheriff and a locally important businessman; a high school teacher dealing with his own past while trying to bring a love of science and life to his students; and Maggie, a reluctant resident who begins to learn that life's restrictions can also be its satisfactions. Conflict among them builds to a climax and an unexpected resolution as the island dispenses its own unique justice.

Winthrop makes the feel of the place almost tangible. The reader can almost smell the sea and mud, the bracken, reeds and trees; feel the sat air summer and winter. It's well worth the read!

I had previously seen this book reviewed in a leading magazine and thought I would give it a try. I found it to be very interesting with the focus being on the island's winter people, their code of community, their secrets, and their justice. At first I was disappointed at how the last 10-15 pages ended, but after I rolled the conclusion around in my head for a while, I realized the author had concluded the book in typical style of the islanders. They always handled their own situations without fanfare -- . An excellent read!

The author explores the subtleties of emotional abuse in one woman's relationship juxtaposed against the growing trust, friendship, and love another woman, who has been defensively independent, learns to express. I have been in both places, and so have many women and I learned a lot reading Island Justice. I've also lived on an island and know that Elizabeth Winthrop accurately portrays the conflict between life that confines and turns in on itself and the safety we feel in being known, accepted, and belonging. Island Justice is a beautifully written and compelling story about important issues.

I did enjoy the book, but as another reviewer said, the characters were not clearly drawn. I was half-way through the book before I cared about any one of the "cast" members. The ending was ambiguous and I think as readers we deserved something more definitive. I would like to try another of her books to see if those same things are true.

3 stars. An easy read. A nice story idea, but not a great book.

It was easy to become protective of the main character, as she goes from being widely independent to becoming lonely and questionable as she starts a new 'life' on an island; her god-mother left her a house on an island off the coast. It was easy to fall into the scenery. It was easy to feel you were waving, as Island neighbors do but....

I would have liked Ms. Winthrop to delve deeper into the art of "maggie" refinishing her furniture as a spiritual guide for 'refinishing her life', but this did not occur. I felt that this story could have spun off is so many positive direction, but Ms. Winthrop chose instead to spin it into 'dark secrets' of wife beating and child abuse.

The story was entertaining and filled a weekend with pages, to which that can never be a bad-thing. I am just not sure how deep I feel about this book, beyond a simple-entertainment factor. It left me feeling rather blah and "what??".

When her godmother dies, Maggie Hammond is surprised to learn that her godmother willed her house on an island off the New England coast to Maggie. She moves into the house just before winter sets in, with the intention of fixing it up and then selling it for the next summer season - but events, circumstances, and life in general on the island intervene.

Elizabeth Winthrop takes a woman who has been fiercely independent all of her life and places her in an isolated environment whose residents know that they must help each other if they are to survive and keep that environment as it is and as it has been for their lifetimes. That environment works its way into Maggie's soul, and as the book closes we hope that she has changed for the better.

Winthrop's book is an interesting lesson in group psychology, and one wonders what will become of Maggie Hammond two or three years down the road.

This is one of those books I started in the bathtub and remained for hours till I was well pruned. The story draws one in slowly, at the same pace as it unfolds in the eyes of the main character. Unlike others, I found the ending to be fitting to the story - anything else would not have been natural. Pick up this book on a Friday night 'cause you will not be able to put it down!!!!!!

A great read that kept me going. I would highly recommend this especially to anyone interested in learning how to write. The characters were real and the flow of the story kept me moving forward. I only wish Anna didn't shoot quit so low.

This is a gripping read in which the author uses the microcosm of a society on an island off New England not only to create a highly suspenseful story but also to tellingly engage broader themes, such as romance between people of a certain age, environmentalism and disparities in wealth. While the main characters are compelling, the secondary characters--most of them the year-round people who live on this island that's a summer home to the rich--are so vividly drawn that it is they who lend the book its special piquancy.