Customer Reviews

A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book to be a refreshing tale which blends the struggle to grow up with the urge to stay a little girl sitting on her father's lap forever. As I read this book, I felt myself being brought into Channe's world, and became part of the Willis family myself. I can't even call A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries a book. It was an experience.

The book is more a series of autobiographical short stories about a girl growing up first in Paris then on Long Island. Her father, a famous author (perhaps a stand-in for James Jones), is a complicated yet loving man capable of tremendous fury and tremendous love. The stories themselves are typical coming-of-age narratives, but they're graced by Jones' clear style and by situations above and beyond the ordinary. Worth a read.

I finished this book two days ago and have been unable to move onto other reading because this one still preoccupies my thoughts so. Like the author and her brother, my brother and I spent part of our childhoods in Paris in the 1970s and shared many of the experiences and settings the author describes. The book does strike me more as a collection of autobiographical stories than as a novel with a single narrative, but whatever its form, it is beautifully written and resonates deeply with me, as I know it would with anyone who has gone through that expatriate experience.

Kaylie Jones is one of the best young writers in the world today. A Soldier's Daughter is a novel that I can recommend to everyone -- particularly anyone who's ever lost a father, a friend, a home. At times sad, often humorous, always honest -- deserving of a National Book Award nomination.

A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries is based on the author's journeys through childhood and her early adult life. It is a compelling story of life, love and loneliness. The novel is basically about the relationship the main character Charlotte-Anne (also known as Channe) had with her father and how it changed throughout her childhood and maturity. Channe is very close to her father throughout her early childhood. As she becomes a teenager they begin to drift apart. But after an unfortunate turn of events the bond is tightened between them.
From the first chapter the reader is put inside the mind of five-year-old child to see the world through her eyes and to experience things the way she experienced them. The reader gets pulled into the book from the very beginning through the author's use of vivid description and specific details when Charlotte-Anne's parents adopt a five-year-old son. Charlotte-Anne has to learn to cope with not being the only child. Channe has a very temperamental personality; one moment she loves him the next she can't stop being mad at him. The book also follows her relationship with her brother and how they learn to love and respect each other no matter how impossible it seems. From her brother's adoption to their move from France to America Charlotte-Anne tries her best to love life and live it the best she knows how.
I really enjoyed reading this book because it is written from the perspective of a child and the book illustrates beautifully the confusion that children go through.

It didn't take much for me to become a fan of Kaylie Jones. Between Celeste Ascending and now this, I am an ardent consumer of Kaylie's works. I'm quite looking forward to her upcoming memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me. I saw it on the Daily Beast's top summer reads and I'm antipicating it quite intensely. I loved A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries and am sure Kaylie Jones will not disappoint with her next book!

In anticipation of Kaylie Jones's soon to be released memoir, LIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME, I revisited my copy of A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES, a novel based loosely on Jones's early life in Paris. My 2003 reprint of the 1990 novel includes an introduction by the author, written after having visited the set of the Merchant Ivory film of A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER. With graceful prose, Jones tells the story of Channe Willis, who lives in Paris with her mother and father (a renowned writer), and her newly adopted brother. Forced to share her father for the first time, Channe's story is at once heart-wrenching and heart-warming. Jones is a master of characterization (Yes, I'm a fan. SPEAK NOW was my first Jones novel). Seemingly with ease (though that can't possibly be true), Jones creates such multi-layered characters that I found myself chastising them one minute and cheering them the next. A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER is a wonderful book! Knowing that this novel is based largely on Kaylie Jone's experiences as the daughter of writer James Jones (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), it will be interesting to compare the fictional A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER with her new memoir, LIES MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME.

The book "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" is about a young girl, Channe, living in France and how she must endure the many life altering events that occur making a significant impact on her life. Channe as a young child is very resentful and curious of the world around her. As Channe matures her actions become seemingly irrational and reflect on the outcome of her adulthood.
I found that after reading this book it gave me a different perspective on many things and how one should handle themselves. It lead me to ask questions and at some points baffled me to read what Channe had done before the age of sixteen. I was also quit intrigued with how the parents handled Channe's behavior in such a stand offish and unique manner.
I really enjoyed the ascription of honesty expressed in the book in how a girl of Channe's stature would express and define herself. I thought that this book was a very good read and kept me interested at all times. I also felt that the book was very well written making it easy to absorb.

A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries has touched my wife and me in ways no other novel ever has. Scene after scene moved us through emotion after emotion. The storyline is equally heartbreaking and heart-warming. The characters are honest and affecting to the bone. A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries should be a must read for every mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother!

This is a very heart-felt coming-of-age novel that acts as a mirror for those of us who grew up in the high-school culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This mirror is provided by an American girl who happened to spend most of her life in Paris and suddenly finds herself in the USA. The characters, situations, and thoughtful recreation of the times seem very on-the-mark, and make me want to seek out other works by novelist Kaylie Jones.