Customer Reviews

Morning Is a Long Time Coming

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I definately consider "summer of my german soldier" to be one of my top 3 favorite books of all time, so of course I was anxious to read the sequel. After reading some disappointing reviews, I was skeptical, but decided I had to read it to find out what ends up happening in Patty's life. Actually, the first half of the book is pretty good, although her relationship with Ruth is not what I pictured it would be, the first half of the book ends well with Patty getting ready to leave for Europe. Through the first part, she goes on about how she misses Anton and what her life has been like over the past 6 yrs. Then come the second part, and let me tell you...almost anyone could have written a better conclusion. It starts out with Patty on a boat to Paris, where she meets a fairly nice guy named Michael, who likes her. They are in love for a while, and there is even the chance of them getting married. Then he makes a joke about her "reeling in a doctor" (he's an american med student at switzerland) and she gets mad at him saying this and all of a sudden realizes that she dosent want him and he is somehow just like her father(although I never understand her point on this.) Soon she is in Paris, and meets another guy named Roger, who is the biggest jerk, and who most resembles everything that is bad about her father. Somehow, she still thinks hes good looking, so she has sex with him less than a day after she meets him! He even asks if it hurt when he entered into her, so this is definately NOT a childrens book! When she finally gets the courage to tell him she's going to Germany (months after she arrived in Paris) he goes wacko and tells her he considers her dead, and dosen't blame her father for disowning her because she is ungrateful to him, etc. Basically, Roger is a younger version of her father. When Patty gets to Germany, thats when she really goes off the wall. She thinks that everybody is a Nazi, and although everyone is really nice to her, she seems to hate them all of a sudden. She goes to the home of Anton, and his father welcomes her in and is really great to her, but once she learns that Mrs.Reiker is dead, she goes without asking him about Anton. That is when Patty really goes anti-German and even gets thrown in jail for making a big scene back at her hotel. She goes back to Paris after calming herself, and realizes that Paris and Roger and the right things for her life, and she is sooo sorry she casued Roger so much pain and she'll never think of Anton again. (At this point, I was about ready to throw up)

Morning is a Long Time Coming was an ok book, but as the sequel to Summer of My German Soldier, I expected much better. This tells the continuing story of Patty, who helped an escaped POW, Anton, when she was 12, during WW2. Now 18, she leaves her abusive family to go to Europe, in hopes of finding her German soldier's family; she wants a better family relationship then she had at home. However, she gets sidetracked in France over a love affair. She and Roger keep having silly arguements, problems spring up, and it gets old after a while. I think that this book should have focused more on her finding Anton's family, rather than a love affair in Paris. The humor was good though, and I liked the French thrown in. This book was all right if you want to know what became of Patty, but it was rather disappointing. If you want a really good read, read Summer of My German Soldier.

This is a beautiful book--one I too picked up and tried to read at age 11 right after reading Summer of German Soldier. I didn't like it then. How could I? At age 11, change is not a favorite condition--which is all this novel is about. I decided to try it again at 21. The book is just wonderful for adults seeing Patty grow up and make decisions as an adult. An adult knows that sick feeling when they are about to disappoint their family but knows they have to to follow their own path. To address other issues: Michael Werner was abusive like her father--she had to learn to choose someone not abusive. There is the reference to sex--it is not out of place in a coming of age novel. And at 18, she is not particularly young to be portrayed as a young woman losing her virginity. If it helps the morality police--this is the guy who begs to marry her. There should be no more mention of Anton. He's dead--they were never in love or a couple. They were good friends. He opened her eyes to another continent and she went as soon as she got the chance. She chose to go to Paris first--Roger did not cause her to detour. She finally does go to Gottingen. Sure, she could have talked to Anton's dad--but why? When she realises his mother is dead, she also realises Anton is gone and the past is just that--past. She freaks out--and quite frankly Anton's poor dad had lost his wife and a son--why bring it up and cause him grief? The novel is a sweet story about a woman realizing she can tell others not to abuse her--the way a child cannot. She is learning to let go of the past the way a child cannot, and she is learning to live a new life--her own in the place she chose. This novel was about Patty--not about what happened 7 years earlier with her now dead friend. Patty goes from being a girl to a woman in this novel. This is a book that needs to be read by adults and certainly not just after reading Summer of My German Soldier in school.

I know many people on here thought they'd read this book and it would be just as good if not better, than the prequel. Exepct that NOT to happen to anything. BUT I thought this book was very good. We see Patty moving on with her life, trying to the past where it belongs, and finally turn into a beautiful lady. She becomes more brave with her oppinions, more confidant...the time she spends in Paris is realistic, because she ran out of money, and she liked it there. So she did wot any other girl would've done. Stayed for the cute guy. Who hasn't? She finds out more about who she is as a person. She finds love with Roger, and it's very romantic. When she goes to germany, I feel she didn't speak to the father because she figured she didn't need to anymore. Why bring up the past with a stranger? She found her closure or didn't need it. I love this book for being realistic and true to human emotion and reactions. There's no huge drammatic make-up scene between her and Roger. Just natural.

This is not a story about her finding closure of Anton's death, this is a story about Patty growing up and changing into the better person she needs to be. This is also not Patty's Autobiography where you read every single detail of her non-exsistant life. And if these things are all you see, then you've completly missed the point of the story.

This book is the sequel to the wonderful Summer of My German Soldier. After reading that tragic story in seventh grade English, I was going to immediately read Morning... but when I saw a synopsis of the story I held back from reading it because I haven't completely gotten over Anton yet. Anyhow, a few years have passed and I finally got some time to read this book--let's just say I should have spent that time doing something more constructive. First of all, the plot itself is weak. Why would patty want another mother figure? Isn't Ruth good enough for her? If she wants to find a connection with Anton, **SPOILER alert here** why did she turn back after she meet with Mr. Reiker? Can't she talk with him about Anton? Patty also spends way to much time in Jenkinsville withstanding the same hardships she had to endure in the first book. It became kind of repetitive after 10 pages. Patty herself has also became extremely annoying. She has suddenly gotten very introspective and has to tell the reader every single one of her thoughts and feelings. Despite what anton has taught her, Patty still severely lacks self respect--as demonstrated by her relationships to guys like Michael and Roger. Anyhow... I do not recomment reading this book--instead, reread Summer of My German soldier because the only good parts of this book are the parts when they link back to the events of the first book.

When I started reading Morning is a Long Time Coming, I was a little upset... It had the same characters, but was very different from Summer of My German Soldier. I can completely understand why several people in these reviews have written they were let down-- at first, I was too. But then something dawned on me: The sequel takes place 6 or so years later from Summer of My German Soldier... of course it's going to be different... I thought this was a very good book, one that you definitely should read after Summer of My German Soldier... You basically have to!

After having waited years to read this sequel, I was slightly disappointed once I had completed reading it. The fact that the book contained some little-known French was one reason, especially when knewing the French sometimes helped to understand what was happening in the story. Even after re-reading the story and being able to translation most of the French, I was dissatisfied. Although Patty went back to France to live out her days with Roger, I don't feel the book adequately resolved Patty's need to find a mother's love. It just doesn't seem effective for her to basically say "Okay, since Anton's mother is dead, I'll just settle for Roger". The story spent too much time on Patty's getting to France and living there, and not enough time on her actual goal of trying to find a true mother-daughter relationship in Europe. This book is good to read if you just want to know what happened to Patty, but doesn't have the same genuine feel as its predecessor.

Patty Bergen returns in the sequel to Summer of my German Soldier as an eighteen-year-old. She leaves her mentally and physically abusive family behind to find the parent's of her dead "Nazi friend." Before she goes to find her dead friend's parents, she goes to France where she falls in love with a man named Roger. Suddenly she leaves Roger to go on her hunt. I liked the first book better because it has more actions and emotions than this one.

This book is an intriguing sequal to Summer of My German Soldier. After young Patty Bergen graduates high school, she decides to travel abroad despite her parent's disapproval. Her first stop was Paris, where she wished to relax and learn more about the life of the French. Here, she runs into a man named Roger, whom she befriends and falls deeply in love. As weeks go on, she becomes extremely close to Roger, but faces up to her real task, going to Germany in search of the mother of the Nazi soldier she tended to one summer in secrecy. Because the solider was killed, she vowed to find his family.She leaves Roger with a rocky departure and heads to Germany. This story ends rather abruptly. I was not very impressed with this book, because it lacked detail and was not very exciting. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a short, simple story.

In the spirit of summer reading lists of yore, I thought I'd focus on another book that was on one of the many lists I went through. Or rather the sequel to one of those books--MORNING IS A LONG TIME COMING--the sequel to Summer of My German Soldier (Puffin Modern Classics). Reading Summer of My German Soldier (Puffin Modern Classics) kind of wrecked my twelve-year-old self. I loved it, but man did it hurt. I was on Patty's side from the beginning and I was frankly horrified at the way her family treated her. Particularly her atrocious mother. In fact, it was probably the pains she suffered at the hands of her parents that lingered in my heart far longer than the loss of her sweet friend. I remember being outraged and bereft at the end of it, having come up hard against Patty's many injustices, both social and personal. It's a beautiful book, but man does it hurt. Fortunately, this lovely sequel went a long way toward healing that hurt. Just as it did for Patty. And every time I read it it makes me want to go to sleep and wake up in Paris.

MORNING IS A LONG TIME COMING opens six years after the events of Summer of My German Soldier (Puffin Modern Classics). Patty is graduating from Jenkinsville High and heading to visit her grandparents in Memphis to celebrate. While there, they present her with a check for college and she begins entertaining the possibility of fulfilling her dream and traveling to Europe to find Anton's mother. Unable to set the circumstances of his death behind her, Patty longs to meet his family and explain her story to the mother of her friend. Against the wishes of her family (and the entire closeminded population of Jenkinsville), she sets sail for Europe, making a few friends on the voyage who help her come out of her shell a little and who remind her there is so much more to the world than Arkansas. In Paris, Patty meets a young photographer and English instructor name Roger who opens up another view of the world to Patty. And even as she experiences a happiness and freedom she has never known before, her obsession with Anton's death and with finding and meeting his mother rears its head, lurks in the back of her mind, pressing on her, prodding her to leave Paris and Roger for Germany and the possibilities it represents.

I love this book. It is such a simple, sweet story. And I love it as a sequel because, even set six years later, it addresses the implications of its predecessor with just as much gravity and attention as they deserve. Patty was just twelve years old when she met Anton. The fact that she has reached the legal age of adulthood has nothing on the power of the impressions that were made at that tender age. At the same time, I was proud of how strong she'd gotten in the interim. She stood up to her mother and father, she defied everyone who ever told her she was dirt and she left them in the dust and traveled to the Old World, which for her was so breathtakingly new. It's a fine line presenting a protagonist with a true obsession. And Patty was a slave to hers. But she was cognizant of it. That fact is what always strikes me about her. She knows it's killing her, dragging her under with its constant emotional assault. And yet she moves through it, trying to keep her head above water and do the right thing and accomplish what it takes to lay her ghosts to rest and move on with her life. I love her for her doggedness and her earnestness. And I love Roger for his quintessential Frenchness and for the wholehearted and compassionate way he embraces life and Patty.

Few people read beyond the first book. Many don't even know this one exists and it deserves so much more than that. Recommended for fans of Eva Ibbotson (particularly A Song for Summer) and Madeleine L'Engle's And Both Were Young.