Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a journey..., October 2, 2003
By A Customer
The past is a bridge to the future. In Margaret Johnson-Hodge's newest literary offering, A Journey to Here, we find Sylvia "Suvie" Allen neck deep in what she considers a good life. Happily married for nineteen years to Emory, two wonderful adolescent daughters, Aaron and Monet. However, the pretenses of Suvie's happiness step into the light when the past literally comes a knocking at her door. Phillip Butler, Suvie's first love from thirty years prior, is on her doorstep begging forgiveness and a second chance for the horrible act of betrayal that still haunts Suvie three decades later. The teenage Phillip and Suvie had been on the road of heartfelt young romance, sure to end up at Lovers Lane, which crosses with Forever Boulevard. Virginal Suvie felt a stirring in her heart that she was sure would eventually lead her to give Phillip her greatest possessions, her everlasting love and her body. But when teenage Phillip, in an act of raging hormone weakness, engages Suvie's best friend, Dorothy, the walls of Phillip and Suvie's budding romance come crashing down. Now, all these years later, Phillip wants out of his unhappy marriage to Dorothy and wants to start anew with Suvie. This causes Suvie to examine her deepest desires and reevaluate her own life. It's the catalyst for a series of events in her seemingly happy family that will have you on the edge of your seat. Suvie's husband, Emory, and her daughters, Aaron and Monet, will all face life-altering issues through the course of the novel, their triumphs and failings becoming the reader's joys and burdens, because the characters are so carefully drawn, so real you can practically feel their fingers on your skin. The journey to understanding for Suvie and Emory, Phillip and Dorothy is handled with an artist's stroke in Johnson-Hodges' expert hands. MJH's storytelling skills and poetic word phrasing is a glass of lemon and sugar on a sweltering summer day. MJH manages to take even the minor characters and bring them to life. Her portrayal of Suvie's hairdresser, Betty, with her admonishment to Suvie, "breakage is your middle name", had me smiling ear to ear. Few authors take the time to bring forth fully realized characters, few authors value the reader as much as Margaret Johnson-Hodge. Every page, every word, is a blessed offering to those fortunate enough to pick up her novels. In this climate of underwhelming fiction, MJH is the salve, a novelist with gusto, stories that titillate your senses and stretch your emotions. Those looking for stories with high drama and no substance are best to look elsewhere. Those looking for stories that etch themselves in your soul long after the last page has been turned...your journey ends here, with Margaret Johnson-Hodge.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Does life have a rewind button?, September 30, 2003
The overall premise of Margaret Johnson Hodge's latest novel
A JOURNEY TO HERE, centers on love: a lost love, a found love,
a wrong love and a right love. Love discreetly becomes the
seducer which charms the characters and makes them yearn to
turn back the years and recapture the gift that time stole. At 15, Sylvia Allen falls in love, she happy because she is
cocooned by the innocent trust only a young woman/child can
have. But a betrayal by her boyfriend and her best friend rapes
her heart, leaving her bitter and withdrawn; no longer innocent
no longer trusting. But life goes on... after 19 years of
marriage, she has a solid life, a husband who can still make her
laugh and two daughters who have not succumbed to typical
teenage woes. Now 30 years after the betrayal, Sylvia comes face
to face withher past and she knows for the last 30 years she has
been suspended in time. Her wayward thoughts of settling her past
are ill-timed, and as she questions her life, her family starts
to fall apart. Her daughters do indeed have woes; she has just
been too preoccupied to notice. And her laughter comes less
frequently now as do her husband's attempts to invoke it. Key
reasons for Sylvia's turmoil is that after 30 years, she has not
healed, she has not been completely honest with her husband and
she has never entrusted her heart again. Ms. Johnson-Hodge dares to bring conflict to her characters and
as usual she challenges them to divulge heartfelt truths. This is
a turbulent read, filled with blatant truisms and a multitude of
'what-ifs'. One of the strengths of this book is the fact that
the characters are realisticly weak and strong. One point the
author brings home is that a journey of any magnitude cannot be
accomplished without compromises. This book reaches your core in
the most basic way.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superbly Written & Highly Recommended, November 4, 2003
To say I was excited upon hearing Margaret Johnson Hodge would release a new novel this year would be an understatement. As I eagerly awaited my copy of A Journey To Here, the buzz was already aglow with praises like "you guys are going to love it" and "I cannot wait to discuss this book." As usual, MJH did not disappoint and I found myself adding A Journey to Here as an all-time favorite for 2003 with a cast of characters I felt like I have known for a lifetime. Sylvia "Suvie" Allen has it all, according to best friend, Lisa, and other spectators. A mother to two teen-aged daughters, Aaron and Monet, and wife of nineteen years to Emory, Sylvia's life is coveted by many, but to her it is bittersweet. While she loves Emory and would not trade her daughters for the world, Sylvia cannot help but remember the feelings of betrayal and hurt by Phillip, her first true love and best friend, Dorothy. The treachery far behind her now, Sylvia attempts to bury the hatchet until a ringing of the doorbell. With Phillip on the other side a can of worms opens that she is not ready to face. But Phillip is just the beginning of the hurdles the Allens will face within the coming year. As Sylvia struggles to keep the past in the past, curiosity and a broken heart beg for answers and the closure she was deprived of years ago. As Sylvia wrestles with what life could have been and what it has become, Judas rears his head once again. Sylvia is left questioning if the past is worth losing her family as she and Emory struggle to reclaim the rhythm they once danced to.
MJH demonstrates why she is a national best-selling author with A Journey To Here. Hodge consistently creates characters that seem non-fictitious and more like familiar friends. It is often difficult to create many characters readers can empathize with besides the protagonist, but Hodge's adeptness with storytelling is magnificent. I recommend A Journey To Here to book clubs as MJH offers a debatable subject with relationships between fathers and daughters and if an idyllic marriage is attainable after years of longing for your first true love.
Reviewed by Nicki Lancaster
APOOO BookClub
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