Customer Reviews

The Life All Around Me By Ellen Foster

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Kaye Gibbons is one of my favorite authors. I have worn out three copies of Ellen Foster and given several other copies as gifts so I was VERY excited to see that Ms. Gibbons was writing a follow up.

But.

I found this book not at all up to her standards. It rambles and the voice isn't as clear and as perfect as it was in the original. Instead of having a plot, Life All Around Me is more of a collection of Ellen's random thoughts and it was hard for me to get interested, possibly because I have such high expectations for this author's work. All in all, it was sadly disappointing.

I read Ellen Foster when it was first published and fell in love with the straight-talking, clear-eyed spunky protagonist. I gave this book to many people and was delighted when it was chosen as an Oprah book.

I had high hopes for this sequel and I like the premise, that of Ellen completing an essay, as only Ellen can, for early entrance to Harvard.

The narrative voice is still very strong, but some of the exchanges with Ellen's odd friends were difficult to follow and seemed rather extraneous. Additionally, there were some "happy endings" and situations that, as a reader, I found unrealistic and inconsistent with some of the characters' behavior.

A quick read and necessary for those who must know "what happened" to Ellen Foster, but mostly disappointing.

I have loved all of Kaye Gibbons previous books. Therefore, I was greatly disappointed with her new one. It was the most disjointed book I have ever read. I finally stopped reading on page 86 in the middle of a paragraph. Not only would I not recommend buying this book, I would not suggest checking it out of the library either.

Unlike the reader below who made it to page 86, I only made it to page 68. Why I read that far I don't know. I guess I hoped it would start to come together into some kind of coherent story. Rambling is a pefect description. Some of the sentences were so disjointed and nonsensical it almost seems like Ms Gibbons is trying (I say trying) to write poetry rather than a novel. Sorry to be so negative, but this writing is so garbled and wandering that reading it became a chore rather than a pleasure. I will, however, try her next book as her previous successes give me hope for more of the same. This one was just a mistake.

This book was so disappointing to me because I read Ellen Foster and loved it. The style of this book is what killed it for me. The sentences, told in the first person, are excessively complicated and convoluted. I found myself not being able to follow what was going on and having to re-read sentences or paragraphs over. I just finished this book about a week ago and can't really remember much of the detail. I stuck with this book because I kept hoping it would come around and everything would fall into place. Didn't happen for me. I don't recommend it.

I had to repeatedly reread paragraphs of this book to try and understand what she was saying. I felt like I was drunk! I loved Ellen Foster and raced out to buy this book, but I'm disappointed. The lack of quotation marks really hindered the reading. I couldn't understand who was talking at many times throughout the book.

I loved "Ellen Foster," the prequel to this book. I thought it rang true and was a poignant, hilarious and honest look at a young girl's struggle to survive her dysfunctional family in the South.

However, this book fails to live up to its predecessor. There is very little plot, although the writer could easily have used Ellen's quest to go to Harvard early as a consistent thread. Instead, we get scenes with tedious characters, as Ellen waits to hear from the school. Some parts are downright unbelievalbe, such as when Ellen earns money to attend a summer program by selling verse to her classmates, so they can then turn it in as homework. It's clear the school is not a good one, and even at the finest prep school, if half the student body started turning in poems, even the densest staff would suspect something underhand. But not here. Also, at $4 per poem, Ellen would have to do approximately 100 classmates' homework to reach her goal, which you'd think would finally clue the teachers into a cheating scandal. While this may seem a minor point that it's unfair to harp on, it helped destroy the book's credibility, particularly since the author made all Ellen's friends out to have subpar IQs. Plot holes big enough to drive a truck through makes it hard to enjoy the writing style, which did have its high points and the characters themselves, some of whom were engaging and likeable, if too good to be true.

I was also baffled as to why Ellen was unable to find kindred spirits at the summer program for the gifted and why she seemed to feel less alienated with people who didn't know who Holden Caulfield was. This does not bode well for her stay at Harvard, unless she matures some more.

The fairy tale ending also annoyed me. It's possible to give your characters' good fortune in return for their pluckiness, without making it completely implausible. I wish the author had done so here.

Although the general premise is intriguing, this sequel to Ellen Foster left me disappointed.

The book begins with a letter from 15-year-old Ellen to the president of Harvard University, citing the reasons he should be interested in helping her achieve her dream of higher education. From there, Ellen fills readers in on what's been happening in the three years since they met her last: finally finding happiness in the home of her foster mother Laura, making herself secure within a tight-knit circle of odd friends, and seeking closure with the aunt and cousin who threw her out of their house on Christmas when she was eleven.

Despite my interest in the plot, I found it extremely difficult to follow Gibbons' writing style. She does not use quotes, and basically attempts to depict Ellen's life woes and joys in the rambly, vague manner of someone who should already be privy to all the information and is currently living through it. In certain cases, it took me several references before I could deduce who certain characters were.

It shouldn't be that much work to read a book for pleasure.

I guess most every good writer has at least one that misses. This book missed with me. I can't even tell you what I didn't like about the plot because I didn't understand or couldn't find any real story line. Ellen Foster was a delightfully written book, easy to follow with right-on descriptions, but this sequel is so strange. Much of the writing seems like free-form associating rather than coherent writing. Not enjoyable for the reader to try to make heads or tails out of. I cannot recommend this book. I, too, hope Ms Gibbons goes back to her old writing style for her next book.

I am so glad I read other people's reviews of this book. I actually thought maybe I'd had a stroke and it was a "brain thing" that caused me not to be able to follow this book. I'd loved "Ellen Foster" and, even though I knew this book hadn't received RAVE reviews, I thought "How bad can it be?" Pretty bad. I wouldn't have finished it at all except that my son had given me a gift card to a bookstore for Xmas, and this was one of the books I purchased. I usually like Kaye Gibbons's books, but this was not one I'd recommend.