Customer Reviews

Woman in the Wall

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book was great! It is about a little girl named Anna who is very shy and likes to hide. One day Anna feels that she is at high risk when her mom wants to send her to school and to see a physchologist. To overcome her risk Anna decides to build a secret world inside the walls of her house. When Anna is in the walls she watches her famly and her older sister, Andrea's parties.I think that this book was really interesting. It is a book for people who enjoy reading books that are different. I recommend this book if you don't like scary books, but you do like a little bit of mystery. It is the type of book you cannot put down once you start, you have to keep reading.

Patrice Kindl, author of "Owl in Love," produces yet another captivating story with her newest release, "The Woman in the Wall." The novel is written in first person, from the perspective of 14 year-old Anna Newland. Anna is not your typical teenage girl, though. Unlike her sisters, Andrea and Kirsty, who always seem to stand out, Anna wants just the opposite...to blend in. However, it's not people she wants to blend in with, so much as, the house. Or put more distinctively, the walls.
Anna lived in an old Queen Anne Victorian that was more like a mansion than a house and was built in the 1880's. She resided there with her mother and two sisters. Andrea was three years older than Anna and Kirsty was two years younger, so Anna was the middle child. Their father disappeared when Anna was only three. Anna, though extremely shy, had always been a very clever child and by the age of seven she had not only learned to sew clothes, but was also very handy with tools. She never wanted any recognition for the things she did, in fact, it was her desire to go through life completely unnoticed. It was because of this retiring disposition that when Ms. Newland insisted Anna go to school, she hid.
Anna created a small room out of plasterboard, lumber, and empty space that was actually just a room and passageway. The room was under the stairs and could only be entered through the basement. It had never been her intention to live there, just to have a secure hiding place but after an incident involving the psychologist from the school, Anna began coming out less and less. In fact, she built more and more secret passages. As time went on she only snuck out at night to get food. She had everything she needed within the walls and could go almost anywhere in the house, undetected. She went on this way for five years and though her mother protested, there was nothing she could do.
After a while, Andrea seemed to forget all about her but Ms. Newland and Kirsty continued to speak to her through the walls occasionally. Two days before her fourteenth birthday Anna received a love letter through a crack in the wall, written to "A" and signed, simply, "F". Anna decided to write back but it wasn't until he wrote his next note that she realized "F" had meant the letters to be for Andrea. Meanwhile Anna had begun to fall in love with this mystery man, so instead of telling him the truth, she went on pretending to be Andrea, always signing the letters with "A".
One day Anna overheard her mom talking to a man named Mr. Albright. It turned out that they were getting married and he wanted to move. Ms. Newland said she didn't want to move but couldn't tell him why. Being quite angry that her family had failed to mention this slight detail to her, Anna threw a huge fit and finally wore herself out. When she awoke she wasn't alone, someone else was in the wall with her. Two unexpected visitors bring startling news and Anna is faced with making a difficult decision: whether she should leave the sanctuary of the walls, the only home she's ever known or rejoin her family in the outside world once again.
A fairly fast-paced book, I greatly enjoyed the author's usage of literary elements. Kindl's straightforward approach sets a somewhat relaxing tone in that we can all relate, to a certain extent, to this desire for acceptance and understanding. Her interpretation of how the main character responds to situations is undeniably realistic and is only enhanced by the offbeat sense of humor of her character. Written so that you never know what to expect, "The Woman in the Wall," will hold your interest, through the climax, until very end.

Rendered nearly invisible by her painful shyness, Anna is the middle girl of three sisters living with their mother in a rambling Victorian home. Traumatized by the impending threat of school, at seven years old she retreats into passageways and secret rooms of her own construction, and lives within the walls of her home for the next seven and a half years. Anna is content to hide away, nearly forgotten by even her family, until her own growth as a woman renders her 'invisibility' no longer possible. A stray love note pushed through the walls of her refuge appeals to her developing emotions, and the time approaches for Anna to once more venture into the outside world.

The premise of The Woman in the Wall is fascinating: a forgotten daughter rendered into a living household ghost, a home concealed within a home. At first its wistful style offers a playful mix of Gothic fairy tale and surreal modern fantasy, but Kindl's writing almost immediately falls short of its aim. As jarringly mundane aspects of Anna's adolescence are introduced, the book increasingly dissolves into a weepy, implausible pastiche. Normally I have no problem with suspension of disbelief when it's called for, but here the fantasy robs the mundane parts of believability, and the mundane parts are rude interruptions of the fantasy. The narration careens between "artsy," "quirky" whimsy and typical adolescent histrionics, without any working integration. Though arguably this could be construed as a reflection of Anna's emergence from her fantasy hideaway into the real world, it mostly felt as if the author was trying to do too much without having the skill to support it.

Essentially, the book is too much pretension and not enough substance. Though Anna's story could have been a moving modern fairy tale about escapism and self-isolation, The Woman in the Wall more often seems clumsy, superficial, and implausible.

i have just recently read "Woman in the Wall" and hate to read ( i mean i HATE it) but i had to find a book for my upcoming book report and i absolutly loved it i was amazed and even my family cant believe how with this book i could just sit down and read for what seemed like for ever. and i cant wait until her next book comes out. this book was fiction but patrice kindl made it seem SO real.!

One morning I woke up, started this book, and read it for an hour straight! It ws so good my eyes were zooming across the pages and I ended up reading half of the book! It's about a girl named Anna who loves her family but is really really shy. When she is seven,her mother wants her to go to school and she gets scared, so she builds secret passageways in the wall. She lives in there for seven years, baking treats, making outfits, and repairing things for her family but never letting them see her. One day she has to face the biggest decision of her life, stay in the walls when her family moves away, or come out and join her family.

Many people have wished that in certain situations, they could sink down in their chair and disappear. In the book "The Woman In The Wall" Anna, a very shy girl that constantly hid from her family, has done almost exactly that. Over the years as a child she has become nearly invisible to her sisters and her mother. When her mother finally wants to send her to school, Anna goes into permanent hiding within the walls of her mother's mansion. She creates secret passage ways that connect to every room in the house and she stays in them. Eventually, her family forgets about her and they get on with their lives. Anna is content being away from the problems of the outside world. But when her life in the walls is threatened, she has to decide whether to stay or leave the only place she's ever felt safe.

this book was simply enchanting. it took me into a world i knew existed, but refused to accept. i specifically enjoyed the psychological and sociological overtones in this peice. its a good read if your on the beach, or a rainy day time killer.

The Woman in the Wall is a preteen-level read about a young girl named Anna. Anna has always been extremely shy, and claims that 'leaving the house would be like asking me to strip off my skin.' When, at seven years old, her mother conveys that she needs to go to school, Anna takes immediate action. She literally takes apart some of the wall and builds a number of passageways within it. As seven years go by, her family forgets that she is there.

When Anna starts to develop physically, she realizes that she is changing. And when a young man calling himself only 'F' unknowingly pushes a note into her hiding place, Anna thinks it's addressed to her, although it is for her older sister, Andrea.

At the end, a thrilling climax ends with her being rediscovered by her family at Andrea's Halloween party, and a reunion that was unanticipated by all.

This book is excellent, and I highly recommend it for anyone who has ever been shy, and, like Anna, wishes to hide within the wall.

This book was very exiting.You could never tell what was going to happen next. There was something new and exiting on every page. It is very hard to put the book down because you want to find out what happens next.

Patrice Kindl is an terrific author who uses her imagination and creativity to weave a wonderful webb for readers everywhere. Her works are an inspiration to many young writers, including myself. Anna is a great character who teaches readers how to find who they are and be proud of it! "The Woman in the Wall" is a brilliant masterpiece that everyone should have the honor to experience.