Customer Reviews

My Brother Michael

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Janis Owens has crafted a moving tale of sibling rivalry, love, guilt and forgiveness set in the rural south. Raised in the rural south myself, I found the sense of place Janis Owens has achieved familiar and true. The character, Myra Sims, with her unique combination of strength and vulnerability was especially intriguing. If you enjoy Southern Fiction or character driven novels, I highly reccomend that you read this novel.

My Brother Michael is as delicious as a large glass of sweet tea on a hot Florida day! Janis Owens is a wonderful writer, with a skillfully spirited understanding of small- town Southern idiosyncrasies. This poignantly told story of love lost and found, captivates the reader immediatly with its wry Southern comfort and charm.

Janis Owens has magnificently written a wonderfully bittersweet novel. Chapter by chapter, she builds a powerful story of family, love, betrayal and redemption. Set in a north Florida mill town, narrator Gabriel Catts shares the story of his lifelong love for Myra Sims. While still a young boy growing up in the poor Magnolia Hill neighborhood, he falls in love with the girl next door, sweet Myra. When signs of abuse at the hands of her cruel, incestuous father are exposed, he is arrested and the family moves away. Years pass and Gabe returns home from college and is devastated to find that Myra has married his older brother, Michael. With a broken heart, Gabe leaves again. Still love-struck when he returns home years later, he is unable to resist and has a love affair with his brother's wife. The resulting pregnancy and discovery of his betrayal cause him to flee once more. Following his brother's death, he begins writing down his poignant life journey. Ms. Owens has brilliantly captured the culture and charm of the South in this compelling book. The storyline is very imaginative and captivating. The emotionally complex characters are extremely well developed and interesting. This is the perfect story from start to finish and I absolutely loved it! There are universal lessons about family and self throughout this amazing book. I highly recommend that you grab a copy and start reading! Meanwhile, I'm heading out the door to buy MYRA SIMS, the second book in this trilogy!!

Janis Owens is an amazing writer. Her descriptions of her characters and their lives are so real that I feel that I know them. And, although I am not a Southerner by birth or upbringing, I got to feel like the Catts family were somehow just distant cousins I hadn't heard from for a while. This book, and the other two in the trilogy "Myra Simms" and "The Schooling of Claybird Catts" opened my eyes and my understanding to the simple strengths (and someof the frailties) of the rural south and made me ralize why I now live there.

My Brother Michael is a haunting, unforgettable work of singular authenticity and Janis Owens is a welcome new voice in Southern fiction. What an interesting flawed protagonist. What a reclamation. I love her characters. Obviously Janis Owens writes from the depths of her soul. A rich and strange, quirky, idiosyncratically compelling debut. Utterly original, yet familiar. Like Flannery O'Conner. her writing seems so natural, so unconscious, that it's almost as if there's a kind of channeling going on. My favorite kind of book. Up from the cellars. Instinctual. Organic. Surprising in its accrued power.

Wonderfully written in the best literary tradition of the South. Family saga with all the secrets finally come to light. Couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

This is the untold story of life in the rural south. A fast, well-written story that I cried through the first time. Have read it three times so far and will probably read again when third book comes out.

This is such great reading, I immediately started telling friends. I am retired and read a lot, but this was a very special book; the characters were all so real and there was never a dull page! I already look forward to her next book.

Having not read any reviews about this book, I just happened upon it at the library and finished it in two days. I love losing myself in this kind of book. It's one of those books that makes you forget your daily routine.

My friend Molly borowed this book as soon as it arrived and called later blaming me for her night-spent-reading. She says it is one of the best books she's read all summer. As soon as I get it back, I'll check for myself!