Customer Reviews

Rain Line (Hardscrabble Books-Fiction of New England)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rainline is a modern fairytale. In it, Leo the heroine, subservient to her Male, finds herself the survivor, perhaps even the survivor in spite of her "leader's" deathwish. Leo emerges slowly and cautiously, realistically, back into her life. Picking up pieces, and recognizing the new life that survived the wreck of their lost world. Leo is a heroine of the real sort. She wants to live her life well, do what is right for her and those she loves. The people in her life are carefully drawn and developed with humor and sensitivity. The changes they go through are small changes, but changes that are of the grand scale in personal growth.

Anne has written an honest fairytale, the kind you can wish for at night under Orion's Belt.

RAIN LINE is an exceptionally fine and elegant first novel by Anne Whitney Pierce.
On the way home from a party fueled by alcohol, the car carrying Leonarda Baye, a musician, and her boyfriend, Harvard hockey star, Danny McPhee, plunges into the depths of the Charles River.
What follows in this beautifully written and moving novel is an exploration of death and the affirmation of life, mental illness and class struggles.
Pierce skillfully weaves themes of self-esteem, survivor's guilt, physical and mental abuse, and single parenthood all into one satisfying and haunting story with beautiful prose and a deep understanding and empathy for her characters.
While RAIN LINE may never receive the kind of attention that books on a best-seller's list will, it should definitely not escape the attention of any reader of fine, literary fiction.

This novel has lots of dips and turns, and despite all the hardships the main character Leo goes through, I really felt like her mental progression in addressing (or avoiding) the matters in her life were believable. One sign of the best of fiction is whether or not at the completion of the book you think the story could have been true. With the combonation of progresses and setbacks Leo experiences I found her completely understandable and I therefore thoroughly enjoyed the book.

"Rain Line" examines the process of grief and recovery with an unflinching eye. The novel is a complex look at a young life haunted by many ghosts; her dead lover, her eccentric family, and the memories of her neglectful childhood. But, most importantly, Leo has to wrestle with the ghost of who she is to become. A realistic and haunting look at the painfull process of recovery and reinvention.

I picked up this book for free at a library sale and am amazed that only four people had checked it out! The storyline is rather typical; mean, confused, young man and long-suffering young woman die and live through a terrible tragedy which affects many other people. What is not typical is the lyrical prose, realistic life and mental health situations, and incredibly well-drawn characters. This book will stay with you long after you turn the last page. I won't be putting it in a used book sale anytime soon!

Very entertaining, great use of the English language.......could not put down and am anxious for another novel by this author........