Sometimes its hard to go back home.
345399
That is what Dane found out.  Hes come a long way from the troubled teenager he was.  But no one wants to see him as the successful adult he is now.  His brother harbors feelings of resentment.  Jonah just doesnt see the type to give a second chancenot even to his brother.  A wonderful read of family, romance, mystery and surprises that I didn't see coming.  An all-out excellent read!!
2968403
Good book, although it moved a little slow at times.  It was frustrating that the son didn't make it home to see his father before the father's death.
4525070
When love is where the heart is in another state from where you work, believe in your heart you can go home again if there sis someone to go to.
2518272
This book was very well written but very hard to read because of it's honesty on dealing with a very difficult subject.  Anyone who has had to deal with the act of abandonment or even the threat of abandonment  by a loved one  can sympathize and empathize with the main character's feeling.  At times this book left me drained after reading how and what she endured during her Days of Abandonment.  The book's ending was very realistic on how she would go on after such a traumatic episode in her life.
221396
Life is difficult in rural North Carolina in the years between the Civil War and the first World War.  People worked hard and didn't have the material things that are taken for granted in modern life.  Families were large and people didn't travel that much so family reigned supreme.  But change was coming.  These were the years that electricity started to be used, that cars started to jostle horses for dominance on the roads.  Indoor plumbing was another major step forward, and the economy was moving from that of agriculture to commerce and industry.

John Milliken Thompson's Love And Lament details the life of the Hartsoe family in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in these years.  The Hartsoes were one of the major families in the region; it's men Civil War heroes.  Cicero Hartsoe came back to Haw County and ran a store.  He and his wife had nine children.  Life was hard but family was a recompense from God for the difficulties encountered.

But the Hartsoe family seemed marked out for tragedy.  Mary Bet, the youngest, watches hopelessly as one by one, all her brothers and sisters are taken.  Some die from diseases that would be easily cured today, some in accidents.  By the time she is twenty, Mary Bet finds herself alone in the world, her only surviving parent in a hospital for life while she is left to make her way in the world.

Mary Bet is an interesting character.  Although haunted by her family history, she manages to carve out a life for herself.  She moves and finds a job, living in boarding houses and then with roommates.  As the years go on, she is unsure if she will ever have another family, one of her own.  But regardless, she moves on and finds value in the life she is given to live.

This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.  It is difficult for most people to imagine how different life in our country was just a hundred years ago, how isolated people were due to the difficulty of transportation and how reliant on family and friends each individual was.  For women to carve out a separate life for themselves in this environment was a definite show of character.  The reader will remember Mary Bet Hartsoe long after the last page is turned.
2980163
If you have ever lived with someone who has a mental illness or loved someone from a distance, you know how little your world can get. How the every day things get out of proportion and overwhelming. Fig is a strong character who has to deal with so much with a schizophrenic mother. While this was hard to read at time, it is worth the effort and struggle to see the world from a different perspective. Heartbreaking and frustrating at times. I found myself wanting to step in and be a parent to her.
3210070
This was a very heartwarming story that showed how hard it is for people to bridge cultural and generational gaps to reach understanding even within a family.  Although it had some slow areas, it was worth the wait to reach the end of the story.
2070206
Mr. Greene takes a look at his life and it is hard.  The disappointments and the tragedies (self-inflicted, inflicted on him by others and inflicted by happenstance) are addressed.  At times it seems hopeless, but it is clear that there are lessons to be learned along the way and that the joy of the present can rise above the pain of the past if you focus on the right things.
2813887
You have to be prepared to lose yourself in the town and its people.  Some of the characters are a little hard to believe, fully.
3180245
The old sayingyou never know what you've had until it's goneis in this case quite true.  Zoe and Edward, fed up with each other after the loss of their son, get separated as they travel by train from their home in England on what is supposed to be a making-up trip to Paris.

It has been two years since their two-year-old son Milo was killed accidentally.  Zoe, the mother, blames herself, and she and her husband and father of Milo, Edward, have drifted apart.  Now on a trip to Paris given to them by her parents, hoping the two of them get back together, through alternate first person narration and a back and forward movement from present to past alternately, the reader gradually learns how much these two people love each other and what has led to this estrangement.

Unresolved issues make for a lot of pain and suffering; and throughout, I experienced varying emotions, often sitting on the edge, holding my breath, hoping and praying that these two wonderful people can resolve their problems and find their way back to each other.  Were it not for what I felt was a contrived ending, I would have given this family book 5 stars instead of the 4  I gave it.  This book is a testimony to the fact that all couples contemplating marriage should be required to seek counseling before they are granted a marriage license.
1221208
Real life stories can be sometimes difficult to read, especially about the lives of those who faced horrific things, but were able to move on with their lives.
2446411
Sometimes it may be better not to find a person who has been "lost" for many years;  after two lives have separated, the reunion may be more painful than a continuing separation.
 It's impossible to rebuild the  past as if it never happened;  starting over is a painful process of giving  up much and then learning sometimes disturbing new knowledge.  Treichel  examines this question with skill and sensitivity;  the book may well be a  metaphor for his own life, it is certainly an example of regaining the  Germany that was "lost" after World War II, and it is an essay on the  meaning of loss for anyone and everyone.
 The story is simple.  When  his family fled the advancing Russians in 1945, his brother was "lost"  which his mother was busy being raped by Russian soldiers.  "Arnold"  disappeared in the throng of refugees.  For years, his mother grieved her  loss;  Treichel, like every young boy, was apprehensive about the return of  a bigger, stronger older brother.  Years were spent in the search.
  Meanwhile, like West Germany, the family prospered.  In the time before DNA  testing, the family went through complicated procedures with painstaking  German thoroughness to determine parentage.  As most mothers would  understand, the search became an obsession for his mother.  It was like the  national obsession with the reunification of Germany  --  in the 1950's,  posters in Germany would often show a nation torn apart and summed up with  one world, "Niemals."  (Never)
 German reunification symbolized the  end of the Cold War.  Germans, East and West, were ecstatic.  Since then,  reality has slowly settled upon both Germanies.  The "Ossies," the former  East Germans, resent being patronized by wealthy West Germans.  In the  West, complaints have been raised about the cost and the "ingratitude" of  the Ossies.
 Think of this in relationm to a family reunification  after years of separation;  having lived two separate lives, it's a little  difficult to move into a seamless family unity.  Who changes?  How much  must be surrendered to restore the family?  Is the unity built only on  giving up habits long acquired?
 Whether read as an allegory, or a  family story, this story raises a number of gripping questions.  When the  book opens, there are easy and heart-warming answers waiting to slide  effortlessly off the page; by the time it ends, there are no easy answers.  In America, it may well serve as an examination of children given up for  adoption ten or twenty or thrity years ago.
 Iof nothing else, it is  a reminder that separation and loss does occur.  It's a look at how reunion  is handled;  for the person still suffering the loss, the end may well be  unsatisfactory.  For anyone who's gone through a reunion, the end may well  be comforting.
4042462
This book takes you on an emotional journey that is sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, but beautiful throughout.
214922
It was certainly that and so much more. Everyone runs from something and in the end the journey seems only to lead back home.
2874534
A soldier torn by his duty to his country and duty to his family and the decisions he needs to make.
2189106
The story captures daily living after many families lost members due to war or hard times.  Overall, it moved slowly.
2525641
Dysfunctional families seem to abound. This one touched many feelings similar in mine.