Bubble Bath

• ISBN13: 9780060564780
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Available at Amazon Buy this product!

The Kindness of Strangers

Customer Rating :    Availibility : Usually ships in 1-2 business days

The Kindness of Strangers Overviews

A young widow raising two boys, Sarah Laden is struggling to keep her family together. But when a shocking revelation rips apart the family of her closest friend, Sarah finds herself welcoming yet another troubled young boy into her already tumultuous life.

Jordan, a quiet, reclusive elementary school classmate of Sarah's son Danny, has survived a terrible ordeal. By agreeing to become Jordan's foster mother, Sarah will be forced to question the things she has long believed. And as the delicate threads that bind their family begin to unravel, all the Ladens will have to face difficult truths about themselves and one another—and discover the power of love necessary to forgive and to heal.

The Kindness of Strangers RelateItems

• Two Truths and a Lie: A Novel (P.S.)
• Wildwood
• Traveling Light: A Novel (P.S.)
• Torch
• Perfect Family: A Novel

The Kindness of Strangers CustomerReview

Sarah Laden, still smarting from the loss of her husband and dealing with the minutia of raising two sons, confronts the loss of friendship when she discovers that her best friend, a compassionate physician and her friend's husband, also a physician, have been raping their son, Jordan.

Sarah does not intend to foster--and later adopt--the troubled eleven-year old Jordan until her own oldest son suggests it and takes active role in making it happen.

The reader is invited into a plot in which more of the abuse is unveiled piece by piece. The story meanders among the various characters' point-of-views.

The story is compelling, and the prose is good, albeit some of the point-of-view voices are not discernable enough from one another. It is clear that the author has researched the subject of child pornography and sexual abuse. However, as an author who's written on the aspect of child abuse from the aspect of family court "justice," (see PUPPET CHILDPuppet Child,) I was astonished at the large number of dedicated officials spending full-time on Jordan's case. In the years since I've become an activist on the subject, I've learned that the over-riding problem in dealing with such cases is the lack of competent personnel and the case overload of the few publicly employed professionals. Therefore, while I respect the author's study of the topic, the fictional number of characters she's presented as working on the case (and spending time in her kitchen) loses its credibility.

Most importantly, the main characters are more of cut-out figures than this story deserves. Sarah Laden has no complexity whatsoever. She could be any suburban mother whose main focus in life is food (she is a caterer.) Her eldest son, Nate, supposedly a trouble-makers, isn't that bad considering all the troubles teenagers can get into. In fact, Sarah's invasion into his privacy and his need to share with his mother personal details are quite unusual for maturing boys. [Spoiler!] Her second son, Danny, a friend of Jordan's turns out in the epilogue taking place years later to be gay. We've seen no sign of that in his growing up years, and it was absent from his attachment to the boy Jordan. Only Jordan has depth to him and the exploration into his psyche is satisfying.

That said, "The Kindness of Strangers" is one book I read to the end, which is a rare event in the piles of books that often hijack my attention, and is an indication that this novel deserves good ratings.





*** Product Information and Prices Stored:Mar 08, 2010 06:58:31

Available at Amazon Buy this product!

Hot Plate Bathing & Skin Care