Customer Reviews

By the Shore

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

First - I was a bit surprised to find that By the Shore is currently rated at only three stars, as I enjoyed it so much and contemplated giving it a 5 star rating again, four years after my first reading. Then I took a look at the 1 star ratings and saw that a group of mean children (or jealous unpublished non-authors) had conducted a "one star" smear campaign against Ms. Craze. Don't let this sway you from reading By the Shore. The book is moving and thought provoking. Its strength is in its subtleties. I found myself reflecting on my childhood as I read, and was drawn back to memories that had escaped me for years. I look forward to this new author's next effort.

Usually, I'm turned off by writing that calls any -any!- attention to itself, so I was surprised to find myself admiring Craze's understated and evocative prose, even as I was drawn into her plot. No car chases or Jackie-Collins-style love affairs, which accounts for the sour grapes reviews upthread, just the slow process by which a girl, essentially on her own, begins to understand the complications of hope and family and life.

That summation sounds pat, but there is nothing pat about this book. A small masterpiece.

This book was wonderful ! The reader gets to know and feel for each of the characters, especially the narrator, May. She is a twelve year old girl, learning the lessons in life that we all learn growing up...Lessons about love, life, trust and friendship...Every chapter filled me with emotion, smiles, giggles and sometimes a lump in the throat...It was very quick reading and I didnt want it to end ! I Definately recommend this book to anyone with a soft spot for children...Galaxy wrote this book with great detail and with wonderful insight on what is seen through the eyes of a twelve year old girl...

It's amusing to read some of the bitter reviews on this page. Perhaps I'm merely paranoid, but the bulk of them seem to be written by the same person, some evil dweeb with an unpublished novel gathering dust in her desk drawer. The fact is that Ms. Craze's novel is elegant and acute, and portrays an unusual childhood with vivid, often startling prose. Ignore the nastiness and read this book.

I read this book because it was given to me by a friend who apparently knows the author. She was an incredible advocate of her and this book. This is understandable and commendable. Perhaps this ia an admission of my cultural naivety, but I just did not see very much in this book.

It is written very much in the academic "writer" style which always makes me wary of hidden nuances I might be missing. The thing is that as a reasonably intelligent woman,I have long grown to accept that I need good writing and interesting stories and the plebian pleasures of reading cracking good prose. If this is missing all of the supposed academic worth just falls by the wayside. This book was just boring. I won't tell my friend that, but it feels nice to be able to tell everyone else here.

The sun is sweltering. Sweat drips from your every pore and your muscles ache from heat exhaustion. Nothing sounds more refreshing than a cool glass of ice water.

Similarly, the school year drags on. It is past the middle of the last quarter of the year, and exams and papers have piled up. And right now, nothing could be more enjoyable and refreshing than reading Galaxy Craze's By the Shore.

What makes By the Shore so enjoyable is not the writing, although it is good, and not the humor, although it is funny, but the story line, which is a dead-on portrayal of the life of a 12-year-old girl.

May lives with her mother, Lucy, and her younger brother, Eden, in a boarding school-turned-bed and breakfast in rural England. Lucy is distracted from motherhood by the men and friends in her life. Eden is too busy to notice because he lives in a make-believe world of fairies and elves. But May wants some attention from her mom.

May tells one friend that her parents are still married, but that her father lives in the city. She tries to be popular by buying new clothes and hair barrettes with furry fishes on them.

When an eligible bachelor author comes to stay in the bed and breakfast, lives are turned upside-down in a romance too sweet to be seen through any but the eyes of a child.

Rufus comes to Lucy's bed and breakfast to work on the book he is translating. His on-again, off-again girlfriend, Patricia, makes many visits because she is jealous that Lucy is seducing Rufus. Patricia is right to be worried, as she is soon out of the picture. May's father enters the scene and May watches as her parents quickly rekindle, then extinguish any romance that might have been left between them.

Fortunately, Rufus remains.

Amidst all the turmoil of her mother's love life, May tries to find her place at school and in her family. Patricia lies to the popular girls at May's school and says May knows the famous musician Jet Jones, and that he has even kissed her. Suddenly May finds herself invited to the most exclusive birthday party of year, but leaves her best friends behind in the process.

Not surprisingly, May discovers that popular girls are not all they seem, childhood fantasies about parents should remain fantasies and, most importantly, her father is a jerk.

As By the Shore unravels, what's left is two people in love, a family full of surprises and two friends who love each other enough to remain friends.

Aside from a glass of ice water, what could be more refreshing than that?

By the Shore is seen through the eyes of twelve-year old May, who lives in a seaside hotel that's owned by her mother, Lucy. Although it's clear that Lucy loves her daughter, she is a woman who has refused to grow up and is too preoccupied with her own life to really notice May. May's main companions are her younger brother, Eden and her best friend, Jolene. Aside from Jolene, May is on the outside looking in when she's at school. She longs to be a part of the in-crowd, but her attempts to become one of them are unsuccessful.

Enter Rufus and Patricia, a struggling writer and his stylish girlfriend. They're the newest guests at the family inn. Lucy is eager to please while May is wary of the couple. When Patricia goes back to London for a while to give Rufus space to write, Lucy and Rufus embark on what starts out as a flirtation and evoles into more. It's clear that they're in love, but outside forces threaten to put a stop to their relationship, namely Patricia and May's absentee father who comes into town for the Christmas holidays.

May tries ever-so-hard to please her elite father, but he is too self-absorbed to care. Patricia, on the other hand has gained May's respect and admiration, and she is grateful for her company.

I don't want to reveal too much about the last leg of this book, but the ending is honest and beautifully written. By the Shore is one of those books that you can really picture, full of vivid descriptions of places and feelings alike. Hopefully, Galaxy Craze won't stop with this excellent debut!

I think it is important to understand that this book emotes a twelve year old girl's thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, fears and disappointments. She has a preoccupied young mom, a brother 7 years younger than her, and an absent, mysterious father that has done little to maintain a relationship. She lives in a barely viable bed and breakfast inn that her mom runs, and is trying to fit in with the cool kids at school, knowing that she is worlds apart from their established cliques.

The story is not an edge of your seat drama and it was not meant to be. If you are not intrigued by exploring a young person's life, this book is not for you and you will find it unsuitable. But, if you can allow yourself to visit that young soul we all have inside ourselves, and recall when these events triggered all sorts of angst, you will appreciate the tone and cadence of this book.

Some of the reviewers were quite annoyed with the book, and I feel they may have had other expectations. That is why I feel it important to know the story pivots from this young girls spirit, without question it was carried out brilliantly. What touches me the most of this book, is that the author was so true to her young heroine, May. Where adult and worldly prose could have been injected on occasion, the author held back and maintained perspective.

I have read the book and could not put it down. It was insightful, poetic and completely fleshed out those painful moments of growing up. I recommend this book highly. It is well written and achingly beautiful.

As an English lit major, a bookseller, and a book collector with a huge personal library, I've read so damn many books I sometimes fear I've grown jaded. Ms. Craze's book is so elegant, so perceptive, so quietly beautiful, and her aesthetic is so apart from anything trendy in modern fiction, that the hardened veteran reader is rewarded with the increasingly rare sense of having encountered something new, something pure. By the Shore sits without apology on my shelf near my well-worn copy of the Great Gatsby. An utterly enchanting novel. Thanks, Galaxy!