Customer Reviews

Your Blue-Eyed Boy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is generally well written. However, although the all too frequent digressions are often important in character and plot development, they sometimes appeared as unnecessary space fillers, and contributed to the slow-moving pace of the book. Nevertheless, Dunmore's descriptions of the settings, especially of the sea, are vivid and powerful. This and her development of mental conflicts of the main character make this a very worthwhile read.

helen dunmore has a lovely way of writing, her narrative is sensual, and really draws you in. but, in "your blue-eyed boy" the plot, which builds and layers very well, falls short about three quarters into the book. i felt like she had forgotten what the rest of the book was about. the narrator's actions take a turn for the bizarre, new details are thrown in just to make the end seem plausible... and i was just left with a feeling of "ok, come on, this is just silly." her writing, her eye for detail, specifically in the language of landscape and food is brimming with delicious description... but the plot in this one falls flat at the end.

A disturbing desperation on almost every page. A 4 because one can't put this book down. The writing is superb.
Simone is 18, goes to be a camp counselor in Cape Cod from London. Has a love affair with Michael, 28. They are haunted everywhere they go by Calvin, a Vietnam vet friend of Michael's. With this unholy pair, the then naïve Simone is trapped inand a parasitic relationships. Skip to Simone age 38, now a district judge in civil court, two boys Joe and Matt and a husband who has recently brought the family to the brink of bankruptcy due to a failed architectural firm. Michael looks them up where they live in the northern marsh land. He's got pictures, his own failed life, and the belief that only Simone can save him. There seems no way out of doom. That must be the point.

"Your Blue-Eyed Boy" is a novel about time lost. You cannot regain the features of the body you once had, every single cell of your flesh underwent many a transformation, and more to the point, your mind has changed. Irreversibly. The past cannot be brought back, feelings, if they ever return, soon vanish under the thick layer of the present, the overwhelming mindset that had gripped you long ago and refuses to let you loose. Perhaps it's for the best, perhaps it's as it should be, for what would happen if we were able to reverse the flow of time? Would we gain as much as we think we would? The answer is yes, indeed we would come straight back to the world of lost impressions, in spite of our altered bodies. The irony is that such reversal is insane. Our ever rational mind revolts against that very idea, for everything we have now, would be lost. You cannot eat the cake and still have the cake, as they say. There is a price for everything in this world. Are you willing to make that irreversible move?

The life of a thirty-eight years old judge changes when she receives a call, and then a letter, and then a visitor from America, a sequence of intrusions in her steady life consisting mainly of desperate trials to make ends meet. In an instant, she travels back in time to the era when she had been just eighteen years old, a stranger in a strange land of America, where she met her blue-eyed boy. At that point you think that what you're reading is a mere blackmail thriller, but if you do, then you're deeply mistaken. The book has a barebone storyline, yes, and I strongly advise you to persevere and read the novel to its end, should you happen to have a deeply ingrained aversion to thrillers and mysteries as yours truly. Thanks Helen for small favors, the book didn't turn out to be shallow. The novel is a touching, and yet cruel evaluation of the primary truths of life, sad as they are. There are difficult choices to be made, and there is the horror of passing time we have to reconcile ourselves with. There is infinitely much more to this book than it appears from the terse descriptions, or even from what it seems to be about when you read a couple of chapters. Your "Blue-Eyed Boy" is a novel apt to be largely misunderstood, that seems inevitable. I might also add that those of you who like uplifting stories should better stay away from all books of Helen Dunmore. You might not endure the contents in one piece.

A very satisfying read. When she describes scenery, you are not there...the area you are in becomes her words. When she describes food, your mouth waters as if you are chewing it...and you can feel the fear in deep in the heart of her character.

I just finished reading this book, and I really thought that it was a great look on stalkers. Simone really has been through too much to deserve a blackmail threat. It really gets to her with the bricklayer/blackmailer line. This book also explores who you really are. Are you someone who you were twenty years ago, or are you the person living today? If you want to have a really scary read, read it on a dark night all alone.

I enjoyed this novel tremendously. Dunmore wanders away from the story line quite often but it's never disturbing because one can simply enjoy the language. And the story itself is beautiful too, It's about love that transforms and never leaves you. It's about remembrance, longing and connection. It's also very real. I know it sometimes happens to the lucky.

I really enjoyed this book and was looking forward to a satisfying ending; unfortunately that was not to be. I was almost angry at the way it ended. Too bad books don't have alternate ending choices the way some movies do. I probably would not buy another book from this author for this reason alone.

I've just finished reading this book and found it to be disappointing. The blackmail theme is interesting and well developed. You certainly feel involved in the complicated life of Simone and her family who are struggling to hold it all together during tough times...but where was the plot heading? Not to spoil the ending for other readers but I found it didn't warrant the build-up. Overall, I thought it was an average book and I'm not sure that I would recommend it.

Haunting. Disturbing. Turbulent. Emotional.

True, the story of Simone is an allegory illustrating the inability to return to past times, lost times, times that can never be reclaimed. As we know from our personal life's experience, Dunmore reiterates to us all that our passage through time, with its people and experiences come and gone, is a truth we can neither deny nor change. However, the final two chapters illustrate the idea that our times past will never truely depart us; the past will accompany us, or at least our psyche and conscience, forever, even when the it seems (or should seem) dead and buried. Whether or not we let those memories haunt us or bless us with a fondness and sweetness depends on many, many things, one of which is how we choose to treat such memories. Do we bury them in secrecy and anonymity or do we acknowledge and cherish them for what they are, if they are so worthy? Dunmore alludes to the idea, and I tend to agree, that it depends largely on how the memories might relate to each of us individually: as they force themselves on us how do we choose to deal with them? Is a memory used against us as a weapon or force to hurt us only to then be discarded? Or is it used in friendship as a common thread, perhaps connecting the individual with a singular person in the world that will tie them together forever? Only we - the single individual - can decide.