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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best book ever, April 2, 2010
This review is from: A Soft Place to Land: A Novel (Paperback)
omfg, I *know* this world Susan Rebecca White has written about! It's like I lived it myself. Julia and Ruthie start off in the crazy/wonderful "new south" of Atlanta, right alongside the "no white shoes after Labor Day" Old South that will always be there, especially in the tony part of town the girls live in. SRW is spot-on in her portrait of these two half-sisters (they have the same mom, but different dads) trying to figure out HOW TO BE within this world of BMWs and fine champagnes and prep school girls who tsk and tug you away if you try to help the poor misfit who spills her tampons in front of everyone in the junior high parking lot. Just that alone would make a frickin' great story, right? Just wait. The girls' madly-in-love parents die, and the super-close sisters are separated. Good girl Ruthie goes to live with her hip aunt and uncle in San Francisco; wild child Julia, on the other hand, is sent to live with her still-living dad and her stepmother in a small southern town that's as different from Atlanta as San Fransisco is. It's wrenching to watch the two girls as they navigate their new situations, but completely engrossing. While the story is told from the POV of Ruthie, the "lucky" younger sis who draws the better hand in terms of life-after-the-death-of-her-parents, it's Julia my heart goes out to. Um, can anyone say "Christian Reform School"? Uh-huh. Just try imagining the trials she endures when she's sent there to "be straightened out," and then know that you're ten percent there, because Julia's reality is so much worse (and yet better, in terms of storytelling) than you can possibly predict. The bottom line is that this is a sister story...and I LOVE me a fabulous sister story. People change, *sisters* change, and it's hard and painful and wonderful and sweet to read their story, cheering them on as they grow into two very different women who nonetheless love each other intensely. For anyone who has ever struggled with maintaining an important relationship, this book is for you. If you like to laugh and cry and snort-giggle while you read, all the better. You'll come away a changed person, but in a good way. The best way. Your soul will be lighter, your faith in the world affirmed.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An older reader's perspective, April 8, 2010
This review is from: A Soft Place to Land: A Novel (Paperback)
One of my daughters gave me A Soft Place to Land the day it came out and I spent a delightful few hours reading it, even though the untimely death of Phil and Naomi, the natural parents of Ruthie (Phil was Julia's stepfather, whom she loved dearly), brought many tears to my eyes. Let me tell you, the book is not just for sisters. All parents live with the specter of "who'll take care of the children if we die together?" In the case of divorced parents, presumably their surviving ex-spouses, who are the living natural parents of the children, will take over. But what about children, such as Ruthie, born to the deceased couple? Ruthie had no surviving natural parent. The painful, gut-wrenching factor which comes into play in Soft Place is this: what legally happens to the half-siblings and step-siblings almost always separates them from each other. No law says the new parent is required to allow half-siblings and step-siblings "visitation" rights. Separated children may never see their brothers or sisters again. Ms White shows us how Julia and Ruthie dealt with their heart-rending separation. And what a great job she does. She skillfully reveals and develops the angst and heartache that accompanied the separation. The sisters' sense of loss is palpable. Happily, Ms White reunites them after taking them through many of life's growing pains, without each other to lean on. I'm sure Phil and Naomi would have approved. Caring step-parents and step-siblings will love this book.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling, emotional story without going Hallmarky, May 7, 2010
This review is from: A Soft Place to Land: A Novel (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I tremendously enjoyed this book. The story of the two half-sisters from Atlanta who are separated after their parents' death in a plane crash -- Julia to her father and "evil stepmother" in small-town Virginia, and Ruthie to her aunt and uncle in San Francisco -- builds an incredibly vivid picture of the evolving relationship between the girls as their lives are changed by the events around them and they grow into young adulthood. I will say that I found the back-cover copy (which is also the "product description" above) to be a little on the misleading side, however. This is a book of slow and steady crescendos and rests -- there aren't really any "shocking" moments, nothing that you don't already see coming pages in advance, nothing that turns the book on its ear. And I don't say that as a bad thing -- I think the book is amazing as it is, and the story would be cheapened by trying to make some of the twists sharper than they really are. So it's odd to me that the publisher decided to describe the book this way. There's also something about the overall tenor of this book that really reminded me of the 1995 movie "Now and Then" [...] -- not that there are any similarities in plot or characters, but I can definitely see them appealing to the same audiences. So if you loved that movie, definitely grab this book.
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