Customer Reviews

Sleep Before Evening

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No, "Sleep Before Evening" isn't a how-to book for either teens or parents. It does, however, give insight into the horrors of drug addiction, how it can happen to anyone and how it can escalate. We are all affected by it and it may some day creep up on us with silent paws to become part of our lives in a personal way. Having some understanding of the disease, how it can escalate and how it is not a cause for shame but for action can make a difference if and when that happens.

This is a wonderful book, a story told with compassion and one that, as a volunteer drug counselor, I know rings so very heartbreakingly true.
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Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of THIS IS THE PLACE, HARKENING and a chapbook of poetry, TRACINGS, all available on Amaazon.

The dialogue is solid and believable, and the characters live and breathe and scratch themselves. The drug scenes and the horrors of dependence are especially well-rendered, but the story is ultimately uplifting and optimistic. It is a triumph of the soul. Read this book. CHAD HAUTMANN, author of Billie's Ghost

(excerpt)
As the drama coils tighter and tighter, it is the exquisite quality of writing that keeps the reader utterly glued. As Marianne struggles with her demons and we almost hold our breath as she nears her eighteenth birthday, Magdalena Ball's Sleep Before Evening shows us that in order to find yourself, you sometimes have to lose yourself first.
For full review, please see The Rose and Thorn ezine

A very readable and gritty book about the life struggles of Marianne, a young woman growing up in New York. While the book tells a compelling story set in 1980s new york, it also explores family dynamics and what can go terribly wrong with the best of intentions. This insightful and often painful story is definitely worth reading.

Book Review
of
"Sleep Before Evening"
By
Magalena Ball

Take one high school senior teenager, Marianne, mix in loss of grandfather due to removing life support system, one mother who borders on the dramatic and acting childish, plus one father who hasn't seen his daughter in ten years plus a stepfather who erroneously leaves the childish mother and you get a complete emotional and psychological breakdown of a seventeen year old daughter. "Sleep Before Evening" is a teenage angst novel that all parents should be required to read. Life has a way of getting past you without you ever noticing that time doesn't stand still, it keeps on trucking. I recommend "Sleep Before Evening" 4 stars. A good explanation for what can hurt your children when you sleep walk through life.

I'm very impressed. I loved the relationship between the protagonist and her grandfather, and the mother, who's so obviously bi-polar. Really a good read!

Magdalena Ball's first novel, Sleep Before Evening, is required reading for aficionados of the school of confessional writing. While the book is empowered by its conspicuously female perspective, it somehow manages to transcend the boundaries of gender and force-feeds the reader with doses of a reality much harsher than the beatific title suggests. Ball employs the rare literary voice capable of juxtaposing harrowing experience and work-a-day home life. She accomplishes this rare feat by traversing twin avenues of approach, 1) a deceptively mundane accounting of family events and, 2) a deliberate fracturing of sensibilities unique to, well . . . a David Lynch film. This reviewer recommends that you procure yourself a copy of this minor masterpiece while it is still available as a first edition.

Harry Hughes, author of THE BAIT SHACK
[]

This story shows just how easy it is to follow a path to self-destruction, by taking only one step at a time.

Do we step this way or that? It's not easy understanding the consequences of each choice when our emotional world is brutally shattered. This is what Maggie Ball's protagonist must face when the one stalwart person in her life is gone.

This isn't an easy read. I doubt it was meant to be. It is, however, an honest, thoughtful, compelling read, and I'll take that over easy any day.

I am so excited to have found another author to fall in love with. I'm really picky with what I read, and I tend to lean toward more character-driven works, than driving plots. This is one of those kinds of books. But what I am in love with here is not only the story, it is the WAY in which it is written: with utter musical and poetic genius. A blend of story-telling and musical prose is what I want to achieve in my own writing. I guess that's why I love this book so much. It represents how I strive to be. My only hope is that my books are half as brilliant as this. If so, then I'm a happy camper. :o)

A couple of my favorite prose moments are:

Pg. 44

"Russell's skin was gunmetal grey. He held his hands over his ears while his mouth opened into an elongated O, becoming the perfect example of German Expressionism. Striated oranges and blacks flickered on the wall above his head and, for a moment, she saw the world through her mother's eyes - in lights and colors rather than sound and words."

And Pg. 50

"Flowers were strewn over the floor, bright lilies and carnations lying like war carnage, mocking their original purpose as a peace offering."

Buy this book. And relish every moment of it.

Ms. Ball has written a wonderful tale of the seedier side of life and the unfailing ease in which one can fall into a world that is not of their own norm.