Customer Reviews

Wild Things

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There is a lovely luminous quality to so much of this book. One of my favorite scenes is where Faith and Sydney are walking in a field. When I read it I thought of Sting's Fields of Gold. Later I learned that the author had been deliberately trying to invoke the feeling of that song without actually referring to it -- did she ever succeed!

The passion, too, is astonishingly erotic, explosively conveyed and exquisitely detailed. Give me that over the two or three sentences I'm reading in a lot of uber books these days.

Most of all, I love that both these women are smart, and it shows in all they do. They're moral and compassionate and the kind of women I really hope do exist. Sydney or someone just like her *does* need to be in government!

Yet again, Karin Kallmaker surprised me. Half of the book is written in first person, giving us the narrative of Faith Fitzgerald's unwilling attraction to her boyfriend's sister. Faith's story is alternated with Sydney Van Allen's. Sydney is running for political office and has a promiscuous past to live down. She's not looking for a relationship, and certainly not with her brother's almost fiancee. These two women are mature and focused, and very strong. But when confronted by feelings they can't ignore they must find yet more courage to turn away from the safe and expected paths of their lives toward each other.

Faith thinks of Sydney as the Wild Thing, the temptation she can't resist, but Faith is definitely Sydney's Wild Thing as well. The love scenes are intense and tender, the story truly touching. It's a must read for anyone who is tired of the Bible being used to condemn their lives because it is uplifting, too.

Everything that Karin Kallmaker writes is good. She just gets better each time she writes a book. This story is interesting in that it presents some interesting conflicts. What if you think you're about to marry the right man and then find yourself falling for his sister? What if the sister has a bright political career that could be destroyed by the voters knowing she is a lesbian? And, just to add another complication, how do you keep from falling in love with your brother's fiance? The answers to these questions make for a very interesting story.

Coming out is hard. Some find it more difficult than others. No matter what the circumstances, you never know how your family and friends are going to react. Faith Fitzgerald has more than her family to face, she also has to reconcile her sexuality with God and the Catholic church. On top of it all, the person who has most recently stirred her passion is Sydney Van Allen, her boyfriend's sister.

Sydney is considering running for Senate and is hoping for backing by the right supporters. As such, she has cleaned up her life as a recovering alcoholic and is a celibate lesbian. To make matters worse, she adores her brother, but falls quick and hard for Faith.

The women fight their feelings with everything they have, but cannot deny their love for one another. They disrupt many lives and dispell many aspects of faith, knowing God wants us to love one another.

This is by far one of Kallmaker's best books. As always, she does a masterful job giving the characters depth and dimension. The story is complete, and there aren't too many distractions from other characters or sub plots. This one is destined to be a classic and will be on my shelf for many years to come. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Karin Kallmaker is a newly discovered author to me. Wild Things was the first of her books that I have read and it drew me into wanting to read everything she has written. The story line is interesting and the anticipated love scenes were excellent. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in lesbian novels.

I liked this book but not immediately. The first time I read it I wasn't quite sure what I thought of it. Even as a lapsed Catholic, I found Kallmakier's assessment of the Church a bit unsettling. However, I had to admit that a lot of what she said was true. My one complaint is that Faith's parents were portrayed as caricatures rather than real people and that Syndey's parents could have been given halos. Does that mean rich people are more tolerant than middle class people? I have always been a big fan of Eleanor of Acquataine (I read a bigography in grade school), so I found the historical information fascinating. I liked the way the romance between Syndey and Faith developed with each having to deal with their demons. I wish Kallmaker had mentioned John XXIII. As unyielding as the church is now, it was worse before John XXIII. He began the use of the vernacular in Church services and he instituted serveral Euchmenical Councils in order to bring the Church in contact with the Protestant sects which broke away in the 16th and 17th Centuries which unfortunately led to many religious wars. It is unfortunate that later Pope's have tried to wipe out John's vision but he still remains one of my heroes. Faith is of an age where John's influence would have been most felt. As I said, I was surprised that he wasn't mentioned. BTW, I loved the character of James. I wish we could have seen more of him but he was a great friend to Faith. The end was a little too much happily ever after but it is in the end, a romance and quite a good one. The characters of Faith and Sydney were fully drawn.

"Faith had been tasting Sydney's mouth with intent to taste elsewhere." - Wild Things

It's remarkable how Karin Kallmaker infuses such simple and elegant prose with tremendous passion and eroticism. Having gone through a number of books on her backlist recently, I was convinced that I'd struck gold with my second KK novel, Maybe Next Time, and that the rest of her work, while all good reads, paled in comparison. Boy, was I wrong!

Wild Things had all of the elements of MNT which I loved (well, almost... Chicago doesn't hold a candle to Hawaii): beautiful writing, with pin-point detail and imagery seamlessly woven into the overall plot, "flawed" (i.e. human) protagonists, whose emotional development is captured so intensely that the reader can't help but relate to their inner turmoil (or angst!), and, finally, character development though context, context, context!! Just as family life in Hawaii and her career as violinist played such a key role in defining Bree in MNT (besides the obvious), the same can be said of Faith's Polish Catholic, Chicago upbringing and her fictionalized biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Unfortunately, I'm not as good a writer as KK, so this review has already run way too long, but I'd be remiss not to mention that Wild Things and MNT are both on my Desert Isle Keeper List (trademark All About Romance) and should be in the running for yours!

'Wild Things' was my frist Karin Kallmaker book...and it is surely not my last. If you havent read anything by her yet i would say get to it! I got this book a month ago. Since then I read two others of hers and have two on hand. KK is, by far, turning into my favorite writer!

This book was a little different than the earlier ones--the characters were better developed and the tension between Faith and the Catholic Church (I swear) is almost as unsettling as the tension between Sydney and Faith. Don't miss it.

Having read most of her books I find this one one of her best, well thought through but a bit too optimistic at the end, let's hope one day it will be like that