Faithful by Alice Hoffman - 2016 - 288 Pages
Alice Hoffman works I have so far read:
The Marriage of Opposites- 2015
"Everything My Mother Taught Me" - 2016
"The Book Store Sisters" -2022
The Foretelling - 2006
"Conjure" - 2014
Aquamarine- 2001
The Ice Queen - 2006
Property Of -1977
Skylight- 2007
The Invisible Hour 2023
Rules of Magic- 2017
Practical Magic - 1997
Faithful- 2016
" From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate.
Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.
What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.
Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.
Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel." From Simon and Schuster
I love the work of Alice Hoffman and hope to eventually read all of her works.
As I read Faithful I did so from my perspective as the father of three daughters in their 20s. I could not but think how negatively I would have reacted to two of the three men Shelby was involved with. In one case of an ex-convict covered with tattoos I would have been totally wrong,
Shelby has a hard time bonding with people. Her shaved head does not help. She steals dogs and a cat and provides them with a loving home.
We follow Shelby as she evolves into a less inward bound person. I found the ending very gratifying after much previous pain for Shelby. There are lots of interesting side encounters throughout Faithful.
Alice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic, The World That We Knew, The Rules of Magic, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, The Book of Magic, The Red Garden, the Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and The Dovekeepers. She lives near Boston.
1 comment:
Wow, you have already read so many!
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