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.

After reading this sorry excuse for a sequel, I am SO glad that I did not buy it retail or even regular secondhand, but instead got it from a Salvation Army thrift store for just 33 cents.

Because this book was such a disappointment, I'd have felt even worse, had I wasted several dollars or more on this dismal sequel.

I read "The Summer of My German Soldier" growing up and as sad of an ending as that had - at least it was to a purpose, unlike this book which was a complete waste of time.

"Morning is a Long Time Coming" is set 6 years after the events in "The Summer of My German Soldier". Patty Bergen is now an 18 year old high school graduate who is obsessed with memories of Anton, and thoughts of going to Europe, and meeting Anton's family - particularly his mother, as a replacement for her own cold and aloof mother.

However, if going to Germany to meet Anton's family was supposed to be the purpose of Patty's trip, then it makes absolutely NO sense why the author had her character book passage going to France, rather than going directly to Germany!

Not surprisingly, Patty ends up getting totally sidetracked in Paris, meeting (and becoming close to) a guy, Roger, who is almost as controlling and abusive as the tyrant father she has left behind in Arkansas, and most of this worthless book is taken up with Patty and Roger's relationship and her/their life in France.

It's only at almost the end of the book, that Patty suddenly recalls/remembers her obsession, and realizes why she's in Europe to begin with. It is then that she makes a hasty trip to Gottingen to meet Anton's family only to find that Anton's mother has passed away several months earlier. But Patty doesn't even bother to introduce herself to Anton's father or rest of the family, instead acting like she was a student of Anton's mother and just leaving and running back to Paris at the first chance she gets to be with Roger!

This book quite frankly sucked and the ONLY part I liked was a passage where Patty's mother writes a critical, self-centered letter to Patty, urging her to return to Jenkinsville (Arkansas) and Patty who is in a Paris hospital suffering from a peptic ulcer, writes a letter back to her mother, in effect "telling her off" and letting her know how selfish they are, and that she won't be coming back home.

I liked that part because it always bothered me in "The Summer of My German Soldier" how tyrannical, callous, hurtful and cruel Patty's parents were, and how Patty just took their abuse and wrath without ever standing up for herself.

So I am glad that at least in this book, Patty finally started standing up for herself, and made the decision to live her life the way she wants, and cut hurtful, destructive influences, like her parents, out of her life.

But that was the ONLY good part. The rest of this sequel was a COMPLETE BORE and a TOTAL WASTE of a good story's sequel!

I was so excited to get this book that I picked it up and basically refused to put it down until I was done. When I did put it down, however, I was just left angry.

I mean, in "Summer of My German Soldior", the character Anton was so nice, and friendly, and had psychological depth. But in "Morning Is a Long Time Coming", the character Roger was just an annoying, shallow French guy with a one-track mind.

Also, in the sequel, Patty seems less mature then when she was twelve. She seems to have gone backwards, and now has the maturity of a two-year-old. She has forgotten practically everything Anton has taught her. And what ever happened to the ring he gave her? Did she lose it? Forget about it? What?

Anyway, I would only recommend this book to someone who hated the first one. Because it seems to me that everyone who loved the first book, hated the second.