Customer Reviews

Losing Julia

5 star:		(105)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

How many of us find the time to truly take stock of our life at various stages of our stay on this planet? Jonathan Hull's superb novel "Losing Julia" provides the reader the rare opportunity to experience the love and regrets of a good and decent man from his youth through old age. This exceptional story is told through the journal of Patrick Delaney, a story stretching from the trenches of World War I France to the experiences of an old man fighting a terminal disease while living in an assisted care facility. Holding the story together perfectly is Patrick's experiences and descriptions of love at various watersheds in his life; from his love of his fellow soldiers experiencing the agony and utter waste of war, to the experience of finding and then losing a woman who is a perfect spiritual fit to what Patrick needs and what he can give in return, and finally to an old man living out his remaining months trying without success to remain distant from others because they all die too soon and too frequently. Hull's writing is brilliant, conveying Patrick's thoughts and emotions perfectly as he matures. While the major thrust of "Losing Julia" is every person's need to love and be loved, the novel conveys the suffering and misery of war as no mere history could. War is more than casualty counts and property destruction. Hull very effectively conveys the emotional scars that war burns into the souls of its participants...and even its observers. "Losing Julia" is an altogether engrossing read, an emotional and thought provoking experience. Readers will remember and savor this story and these characters for a very long time.

I bought Losing Julia after the passenger next to me on my flight to Denver, was crying while reading it. After hearing her review I bought the book. During my trip in the mountains, I could not put the book down!

Hull somehow intertwined several time periods around this story of a war veteran who is comming to grips with loved lost and old age closing in on him.

The book was amazing to me, as one page would have me laughing out loud, then the next minute I was riveted with the detailed descriptions of war and then a moment later Hull would hit me with a wonderful description of how love can affect us all. Hull has such a unique yet universal way of looking at life. For example, there as not one analogy of love I had ever heard before, yet I felt I had agreed with them all.

Ironically, my experience with this book ends on my return flight home from my trip. I somehow arrived at the conclusion of the book during the final minutes of my flight, and then I (and I thought I was stronger than this) started crying. All these time periods come to a dramatic conclusion.

I stongly recommend you buy this book and I hope it makes it to the big screen.

I have not read a fiction book in years that was as insightful as to the human condition - what we think and feel on a daily basis, but fail to say to others. It made me realize that my own internal ramblings, strange as they may seem, exist in others. This book, a phenomenal achievement, made me laugh throughout, take personal stock of my life and had the power and depth to make me cry at the end. I was moved by all these emotions during the reading of Losing Julia. It is so exciting and rare to find a book that is virtually impossible to put down, once commenced. My only criticism is that I wished it could have lasted longer. I was truly sad to have to let it go. I am eager to follow this gentleman's career and future books.

I have never read a book like this one. I almost didn't pick it up to read again because the going-backs to the past and heading into the future were making me dizzy ... till I got the hang of the story. And I couldn't put it down from then on. If I could, I would rate it a 10! It's that good!!

Patrick Delaney was facing the end of his life and began contemplating the past ~~ to revisit the memories of his buddies from World War One, especially Daniel, his best friend who was killed in the war. Daniel was one of the rare men who have found love with Julia and through her letters to Daniel, Patrick fell in love with her. By a chance meeting in Paris ten years after the war, Patrick and Julia meet and fall in love. Patrick was married at the time and had a child and the confusion, longings and desires he had felt were so heartrending that one can't help but feel his pain and sorrow with him. Years later when Patrick's marriage fell apart, he never married again as he was haunted by his love for Julia.

Hull writes so convincingly of the days of a man facing death, shut up in a nursing home; traveling down memory lane wishing he had done things differently and trying to find the purpose of his life so he doesn't feel he lived in vain. You are trapped in an old man's body with Patrick and you feel the young man inside bemoaning how fast time travels. One day he was a jaunty soldier on his way to France ~~ his jauntiness hiding his fears and loneliness. Then the next day, he's an old man dying alone.

This is the most beautifully written book I have ever read. It sounds depressing on the blurbs but I advise you to ignore that. It is really not depressing ~~ it does have its depressing moments ~~ but it is freeing too. When life slows almost to a stop, one begins to realize that the hustle-bustle of our daily lives really don't mean anything. Only love matters ~~ where you hold your loved ones close; the touch of a lover's hand on your arm as you talk; the love of a child who runs into your arms ... all give meaning to your existence. Hull writes beautifully and movingly of the love we all search for in our dreams and he carries you along with his beautiful vision.

This is the most incredible romantic book I have ever read. And it helps that it is also lyrical as you travel through the years with Patrick as he searches for his one love ~~ Julia. And while it sounds sappy, it's not. I highly recommend this book for anyone to read. It's a gem of a book to add to your book collection.

Jonathan Hull has written a lovely debut novel in Losing Julia. It is difficult to portray strong emotions such as grief, love and intense fear without crossing the line into trite overwrought sentimentality, yet Hull manages to pull it off.

Losing Julia is told from the point-of-view of eighty-one year old Patrick Delaney and takes us back through his life as a soldier in the trenches of France in World War I, then ten years later to a chance meeting with his best friend's fiancée, Julia, to the present day.

Losing Julia is an elegantly written book about love, the loss of love and the ravages of war on the individual psyche. Although parts of the book can be horrifying, Hull wisely gives us touches of warm-hearted humor as well. The stereotypical crotchety old man, Patrick is, by turns, poetic and sardonic, but he is always lovable.

In the hands of a lesser writer, Losing Julia might have easily become melodramatic...the stuff of a television daytime soap opera, but Hull's writing is so good, so elegant, so classy, that most readers will find they can't help but share Patrick's thoughts and want to make them their own.

Patrick is certainly no cookie-cutter character. He grows and changes immensely from the time he is a struggling, young poet trying to come to terms with the horrors of war, to the wise, and sometimes witty, older man in the nursing home. He never has all the answers, but he really doesn't feel he needs them. I found Hull, and Patrick, to be so correct about our penchant to let the present slip by when Patrick talks about the tendency to live only in regrets for the past or hopes for the future.

Hull's descriptions of the battle scenes in World War I are filled with detail, although some of them do border on the purple. His metaphors tend to be those of a world that is slitting its own wrists and bleeding to death. It's elegant writing, sure, and it it, at times, poetic, but I really doubt that men in battle think that way and this is where I think the book fails a little.

This is not a book that describes war in the graphic way that can be found in Stephen Wright's Meditations in Green, nor is it a book that, I think, that will achieve the staying power of Mark Helprin's classic, A Soldier of the Great War. It is, however, a warm and wonderful story of love and friendship, of loss and gain, and, although the ending is a bit unbelievable, the character of Patrick is still so well-drawn that Losing Julia is an enjoyable and very worthwhile novel.

This is an amazing novel, an even more amazing first novel! The writer has captured the soul of a man reviewing and questioning the value of his life, with all its human aspects. Hopes, dreams, loves, loyalties, fears, weaknesses, regrets, questions and insights are all exposed, digested and ultimately accepted. If this isn't enough, the reader/listener is also given the most intimate and revealing of insights into the intricacies of emotion that war and its aftermath bears upon a soldier. This book belongs on everyone's must read list!

I have just finished "Losing Julia," and can do nothing more than highly recommend it. I am truly saddened to leave Patrick Delaney, the 81-year-old main character and World War I veteran whose life Jonathan Hull so beautifully crafts in this lovely novel. The author has done a transcendent job in this book of creating genuine and unique characters whom we can see and feel and imagine, coupled with the gripping world history that had such a crushing, but not fatal, impact on all of their lives. Until now, I had very little knowledge about World War I, as I am a baby boomer born in 1948. With this wonderful read, however, I have come to know what this, and every, war symbolizes for all of the souls who are touched by it. Patrick Delaney, Julia, Daniel and all of the others who grace this story are beautifully delineated for us, giving us a tale of historical fiction in which there is not one false note. Thank you, Jonathan Hull, for your beautiful writing, for your luster in creating flawed, real and consequently, luminescent characters for us to experience...and for this gripping tale of love, loss and the redemptive power of love, at whatever cost. I will watch with great interest for your novelistic efforts in the future! If you love history mixed with beautifully drawn fictional characters who live it and report honestly what it has done to their lives, this is a must-read for you! A beautiful reading experience...

What an amazing first novel. Jonathan Hull deftly captures the human psyche. This man Patrick is so hauntingly real that you immediately feel you're reading someone's diary.

The story is about an old WWI vet who looks back on his life and the choices he made. The biggest choice that affected him almost more than the horrendous war was giving up the one woman whom he truly loved. Julia was his best friend's widow. They meet ten years after the war in Paris to honor the WWI dead and gradually discover each other.

Though the story is about losing his love, the other part of the story is about being old. The author gives an amazingly accurate picture of what it's like to be old and feeble, lonely and lusty; depending on nurses and doctors to keep you alive. Being hotly attracted to beautiful young women but not being able to do anything about it. However, even though Patrick is now a feeble old man, he still has enough fight and pluck in him to take control of his life; and he never feels sorry for himself. He has a great sense of humor in his old age and he uses it. What a wonderful movie this would make if the right actors were chosen. I'd choose Paul Newman for the older Patrick.

This story has the feel of Brideshead Revisited (another great read) with the characters tortured and tragic but fully developed and believable. A must read!

I must admit that being a WW1 history buff makes me favorably prejudiced from the start. However, apart from the sheer enjoyment of reading this well written and well researched book, I was really impressed by Mr. Hull's technical skills.

I was dazzled by the way Mr. Hull was able to keep three distinct though related storylines going throughout the book. It reminded me of a Bach three part fugue. The three narratives were Patrick Delaneys old age, his WW1 experiences and Patricks affair with Julia. This are all interwoven though handled seperately.

I have seldom had such an enjoyable read and look forward to Jonathan Hulls next effort

This is a book that intrigued me when I read the excerpt on the cover, and I found it more than fullfilled the initial promise. It is quite touching, thought-provoking and very well written. It gives the reader insights into many life-altering moments and describes the friendship and love that evolve for a very special man. The juxtaposition of a youth in World War I and the life of an elderly man sorting through his memories in a nursing home will touch every reader's heart and deepest emotions. It is a story of courage and honor. I am still thinking about the passage that described Michaelangelo when asked why he had a chisel. His response was that he was going to "free an angel." This passage is representative of the wonderful "nuggets" in Losing Julia, which should be savored slowly. I look forward with great anticipation to reading every subsequent book written by Jonathan Hull.