Customer Reviews

Speak Now

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not only does is this one suspenseful novel--almost unbearably so--but it's also a meditation on the far reaching effects of unspeakable horror. It's also about love, loyalty, strength, and survival. Jones excels at portraying the ennobling struggle of people building better lives for themselves and their families. One masterful stroke is how she creates a villain who is truly frightening, and yet will ineluctably evoke the reader's sympathy. This is a book you can return to again and again.

In a time when literature seems divided into two classes-the literary and the popular (or, more appropriately, the literary versus the popular), it is refreshing to read books like Ms. Jones' new novel, SPEAK NOW, as they mark, perhaps, the next evolutionary step in literature-a union between the gripping, suspenseful story that is so popular today, and the timeless importance of writing that brings a reader back not only to recapture a few good thrills, but also because he or she wants to admire, for a second or third time, how authors like Kaylie Jones are able to craft a story and it characters.

SPEAK NOW is, among other things, the story of addiction-addiction to drugs and alcohol, certainly, but more importantly, our strange addiction to suffering, whether it be through reliving past sins, or enduring the touch of a dangerous and manipulative lover. It is a story of abuse of others, and of the abuse we inflict upon ourselves through guilt and the fear that we do not deserve the blessings that we have. This idea is offered masterfully, through the kind of temporal weaving that only an experienced and talented author can conceptualize and execute. Here, in SPEAK NOW, Jones seamlessly takes us through three distinct time periods-the present, in which Clara Sverdlow struggles to rise above her addictions and find the courage to hold on to those she loves; Clara's youth, wherein she meets the man who will haunt her for years to come; and finally, the distant past, in which we learn of her father's role in the concentration camps during World War II, of his eventual escape from those nightmares, and finally of the effect that his experiences have had on Clara.

As a result of her thorough research, the author is able to create scenes and characters that shine not only because of the writing or the action, but also because of myriad interesting facts, placed as purposefully and artistically as ornaments on a Christmas tree. We learn of little details-the clear plastic bags that people in shelters must use, so that the shelter can see the contents within-and appreciate such details not only because they are new and interesting to us, but also because, in many instances, such details support the invasion of privacy motif that runs throughout the novel.

Her characters are equally well researched, the greatest example being, perhaps, Niko Kamemski. Here, Jones has created a sort of distorted Jay Gatsby, a man who is convinced that he has found his love at a tender age, that, by destiny, she belongs to him, and finally, that he must use any means of building up wealth and power to secure her for himself. He is an obsessed and driven man, and he-as well as the women who have suffered abuse from other men in the novel-is crafted honestly, and much to the author's credit, without judgment from the writer herself. Also concerning Niko, it is interesting to point out that his occupation and his own addictions make him not only a physical threat to Clara and her new family, but also a source of temptation-a temptation to return to the old habits that slowly kill us, offering us a dark place that is, at least, familiar.

SPEAK NOW is a fast-paced read filled with details that are fascinating, but that stay in the shadow of the story, where they belong. It is a story driven by characters with whom we sympathize and admire as they struggle to attain one of the simplest, but most difficult of virtues: the ability to accept the past-to look back, but not stare.

Jones does such a good job in building up suspense that I was tempted half way through to skip to the last chapter and find out what happened. But what's most striking about this book is the way the author is able to use dispassionate, matter-of-fact language with respect to the particulars of her main characters' drug and booze problems while maintaining an emotional intensity that doesn't let up until the story is over. The result is to make things we've become used to shocking again. Unlike so many books, there are no underdeveloped characters here. In fact, both major and minor characters are unusually original and compelling; Jones has done her homework without turning in a labored performance. The Manhattan backdrop is skillfully drawn, and makes this one of the best "New York" novels in a long time as well.

Once again, Kaylie Jones has written a novel that perfectly captures and calibrates the emotional inner lives of people--the true thoughts and feelings a person has, believing no one else knows or sees. What puts Jones over the top as a writer is her ability to create a forward-moving plot in addition to that emotional depth, so that a growing sense of real world urgency develops as the story progresses. To pay attention to both these elements--a rare combination in fiction and an even rarer ability in writers--makes Jones a standout in the contemporary literary world.

But in the end, it is the emotional depth and complexity of her characters that so pierces. Each one is fully drawn, without judgment or glibness. Jones is an astonishing talent.

An excellent read. I stayed awake long past bedtime, as I was so taken with the story and the depth of the characters. Well done. One of those books you can't put down, nor do you want to.

The title cover of this novel immediately transposes a gloom over the reader that draws me to desire the nightmare thrill I crave to fulfill my fantasies.Miss Jones writing gives me the heebie jeebies I sooo love when attempting to psychoanalyze the psychotic personalities plotting the labyrinth of evil here.I so admire her adjectival usages in love moments which capture the essence of the animal in the primates and hope this becomes a movie in a short space of time.She deserves it !!!

Kaylie Jones is one of those authors who, once you read her, you know you're going to go back to her books again and again. Jones has a knack for creating such believable characters you'd swear you knew them in real life. Jones's novel, SPEAK NOW, is the story of Clara, a woman fresh out of rehab who struggles to maintain her sobriety in a complicated world. She fights to save women from battered relationships while her own stalker continues to haunt her. Raised by a father who's guilt-ridden over surviving the Holocaust, Clara dares to believe it's possible for her own child to overcome the family's patterns of self-destructive behavior. SPEAK NOW is a compelling novel that's sure to stay with me for a very long time.

Consider me Toto, tearing away that curtain. Pay no attention to that Publishers Weekly reviewer behind the curtain. He/she is not a bad person, just a bad reader. Don't listen to Publishers Weekly and their Hitlerian efforts to create a pure, blue-eyed, blonde-haired race of literature, by sending out their flying monkeys to write academic little blurbs on a subject of suffering they know nothing about. The reviewer seems to be working with his trusty little SUFFER-O-METER, whereby he portends to measure the breadth and depth of human despair to examine if it "qualifies" on the meter of legitimate suffering as if it were a song on American Bandstand. "Yes Alcoholism is a 3, but I give the Holocaust a 10, because, boy you can really dance to it!" I love how our culture is invaded with these monkeys who, through no legitimate process, go about the business of deciding who is qualified to speak about the Holocaust, and in what context the discussion is to be delivered. Yes, the Holocaust has become the perfect alter of suffering before which we all must set aside our own, imperfect, insignificant little whinings. This book does not suggest that one can "get over" anything with ease, let alone the horrors of the Holocaust, but to merely suggest that there are other forms of suffering in the same sentence with Aushwitz and suddenly Jones is banished into that shard of glass in Superman II and is sent floating off into outer space. This novel is about endurance, and triumph. This novel is about putting out fires, and being given the gift of new lives to seize all over again with wiser vigor. This novel is in some ways about redemption. And that is something that all humanity that has suffered can understand and latch onto, from Holocaust survivors, to drug addicts, to alcoholics, to victims of abuse. This book is tender and very real. This book is a song of human dignity. The next time a Publisher's Weekly reviewer tries to take something on: try a vow of silence. Fools.

Speak now is about Clara, an alcoholic, who drinks to supress memories from her past and to cope with the depression that comes with her job. Growing up without a mother, Clara grew up with Anya and her father Vikktor recounting stories from prisoner camps. I didn't like the subject matter or the creepiness of Niko in this novel.

The book deals with two drug addicts that fall in love and their back stories as to how they arrived up to present day. The book was really easy to read and a page turner, but, I always felt bad reading about their constant struggles in life. I didn't feel as though the book was a great read. I didn't identify or feel and sorrow for any of the characters. I am interested to read the rest of Kaylie Jones' work and see if I like the other novels better.

This literary novel explores universal themes of guilt and redemption while at the same time delivering a tale suffused with tension and suspense. Each of the novel's three main characters labors under a legacy of cruelty and shame that has left them broken and angry. Although they share common ground, each takes a different path as the story unfolds; Clara and her new husband, Mark, to sobriety and atonement, Niko to obsession and destruction. Jones is especially adept at capturing the rawness and fragility of the recovering addict. The writing here is clean and powerful. Nothing is overdone but the novel is rich in razor-sharp details and wonderfully descriptive metaphors. Clara's despair over parting from a man she has met in rehab is described as if there was "a shot glass of tears stuck in her throat." While the story barrels to its conclusion, in the end it is the complexities of the characters and their struggles to establish a beachhead of normalcy that resonate long after the last word is read.