Customer Reviews

When She Was Good

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read this book in just a few hours. The main character (Em) just grabbed me and I couldn't help but keep reading. The book is written in a rather spontaneous way, bouncing between Em's inner thoughts, dialogue, and narration. Though a bit hard to follow, at times, this writing style allows the reader to really feel for Em.

This book is depressing and sad right from the first page. I found myself actually hoping the main character would give up. It was almost painful to read about Em's endless string of dissapointments. Day after day Em goes through the same routine. Where she finds hope is a mystery, but she finds it and she holds onto it.

What I like about this book is the 'realness' of it. Em is a believeable and pitiful character. Her situations are as likely as the sun rising. This is the story of someone who never had anything and never really finds anything. Again, I was almost hoping to read about how Em gave up or was killed or killed herself or was somehow taken out of her miserable life. But Em just keeps on living, her reasons known only to her.

I would certainly recommend this book, it is gripping. But be warned that this is not a happy story, not at the beginning and not at the end.

"When She was Good" by Norma Fox Mazer is one of my all-time favorites.The reader is truly made to sympathize with Em, and really wants things to be okay for her. I'm afraid I don't understand where people are coming from when they say this book was too depressing for young adults. It is a very real displayal of the physical and emotional abuse suffered by this remarkable heroine. Em is put through so much in this book, but there always seems to be a sense of hope, however small. She learns and grows in a harsh cruel world with a violent sister and an unforgiving society. Norma Fox Mazer is amzing. This book is kept in my mind always and it has affected how I live from day-to-day. There is one passage in which Mazer talks about baby feet, and how everyone, every last human being, once had baby feet. It is pointed out that if we all had baby feet, chubby, naked, perfect little feet, how different can we really be? This book is magnificent and I STRONGLY reccomend it to anyone.

This story left me in tears. Amazing.. just amazing

Em, the main character, was brought into this world by an alcoholic father and a mother suffering from depression. Alongside with these two influences Em has a sister, Pamela, who suffers from major emotional problems herself. Her mother, kind in mind, was the only one who Em really had a deep compassion for. Her father would come home drunk and beat both Pamela, Em, and the mother.

When her mother dies, Em and Pamela are left destroyed. Shortly after her death the father remarries. His drinking stops, but it leaves Em questioning just why her father wouldn't stop drinking for their mother. Pamela and Em resesnt him and his new wife, Sally. As teenagers Pamela and Em run away. Pamela and Em go through many tough times living on their own. Pamela is abusive and psychologically draining to Em. Although Pamela displays so many bad traits, Em does love her.

Pamela dies at a young age and leaves Em alone in the world. Em is only 18 and has nothing and no one. SHe is haunted by Pamela's memory, and this holds her down throughout her life. The novel focuses on the regaining of strength from Em.

"Why did I go on thinking, even when Pamela slammed me around, that if you are good enough, patient enough, for long enough, your reward will come?"

Have you ever read a book written by a child who has lived through war? "When She Was Good" gives you the exact same feeling.

We enter the story as Em Thurkill is trying to choose a coffin for her older sister Pamela. Mazer tells the story of Em through flashbacks to her past. We discover that Em grew up in a trailer on the outskirts of a small town. Her mother was in a constant deep depression, her father an alcoholic, her older sister is abusive, paranoid, manipulative, and mentally unbalanced. After their mother's death, Pamela and Em run away from their remarried father and step-mother. In the city, Pamela forces the underage Em to get a job and support them both while Pamela spends her days sitting around the house making moppets. Pamela's death forces Em to start to deal with the abuse using a pattern many of us at LostSolace.com are familiar with: hearing the abuser yelling at us when the abuser isn't there, realizing the abuser will never come back, trying to find someone to save us, meeting people who are genuinely careing,finally finding salvation and hope within ourselves and starting on the path to liberation.

This book was a good book, but I am uncertain what age group for which it would be best suited. The book opens with a 19/20 year old girl, Em Thurkhill, trying to choose a coffin for her sister, Pamela. She and Pamela ran away from home because their father married again after their mother's death. Pamela is an abusive sister and paranoid, not allowing Em a life outside of their cramped apartment. When Pamela dies, Em must come to terms with her past and who she is at present. By the end of the novel, she finds contentment, peace with her past, and a friend- all things she desperately wanted.

I have read many books lately and this has to have been the best. Em Thurkill is such an innocent girl and her brutal family life was awful. This book makes you feel for Em and want to take care of her. I think this book is great for teens because it's real writing. I could not put it down.

This book is one of the best I've ever read. Em deals with her brutally unfair life with a sweet, clear, almost innocent outlook that makes it hard to read. The characters are well-drawn, so real you almost expect them to live in your town, and Em's quest for a stable life finally comes together with a soft sort of triumph. Almost worth a sequel...but then again, it's best to make up a happy ending for yourself. My favourite characters are Em and the happy-go-lucky William ("That's a good one. I'm wet today, William...") Five stars. Absolutely.

Em never really knew freedom as a child. Up until she was fourteen, she lived in a trailer with her alcoholic and occasionally abusive father, her weak and depressed mother, and her older sister Pamela, who was capable of frightening rages. Then her mother died, her father remarried, and her sister got worse. One day Pamela decides she's had enough of her father's new wife, so she packs her things, takes Em, and leaves.

Pamela and Em settle down in a new city, and Pamela's rages begin to intensify. She spends her days on the couch in their new place watching television while Em goes off to work. Sometimes Em is able to make Pamela laugh and things are happy, but more often Em is the victim of horrible abuse at her sister's hands. Pamela doesn't work herself; she receives disability checks because of her mental illness.

Then one day when Em is seventeen, Pamela dies. For the first time, Em is all by herself, and she is free. What had always seemed like a dream to her is now reality, but Em almost doesn't know how to deal with it. She's never been able to make decisions about her own life without worrying what someone else is going to think or do about those decisions. She needs to find a way to silence the voice of Pamela she always seems to hear in her head.

It was sad that Em's abuse went on for so long without anyone figuring it out or stepping in to help her. It was tragic what her character had to endure.

I liked that there was no quick fix to Em's life. Once Pamela was gone, things weren't immediately happy for Em; she had lived with abuse for too long to just fall into a normal life. I liked how the story was told in a series of flashbacks, so you already know that Pamela is dead and Em is safe.

I think that this book was a really good book to read. This story is about this girl named Em Thurkill, and her mom dies.Her dad is an acohlolic and her older sister abuses her. When her mom dies in the beginning of the story Em's whole life changes, and this is the part where it gets interesting. Em and her older sister decided to move out so they saved up all their money that their dad gives them to buy food and rent an aparment in a different state. Of course they had to lie about their ages. Months later after they moved Pamela Em's older sister dies while watching T.V. Em first thought it was a joke, but it wasn't. It took a while for Em to figure she was gone because she was still acting like she was alive of the was she was doing everything. Then the rest of the story it just tells about her life now that she is on her own. I really liked this book and I hope lots of other people will too.

...I have to tell you that I don't really enjoy reading at all,but for this one book I'll make an exception. The book I read was"When She Was Good," by Norma Fox Mazer. I'm always searching for a book that will hold my attention, because I seem to lose interest in things easily. The whole story seemed extremely real...I'm so proud to say that I would start reading the book before I went to bed, and it was so interesting that I would look over at the clock and it would be 12:00 AM. I was so suprised by how I lost track of time, by just rading a book. You have to read this book, you'll be happy that you did.