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Grace
by
T. Greenwood (Goodreads Author)
For thirteen-year-old Trevor Kennedy, taking photos helps make sense of his fractured world. His father, Kurt, struggles to keep a business going while also caring for Trevor's aging grandfather, whose hoarding has reached dangerous levels. Trevor's mother, Elisabeth, all but ignores her son while doting on his five-year-old sister, Gracy, and pilfering useless drugstore i...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
April 1st 2012
by Kensington
(first published March 27th 2012)
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This was so hard to put down. Stories within stories. Going back a generation, from father to grandfather, lovel denied, twisted punishment. A father that cannot show love, one that withholds love. A boy, difficult from birth, obviously with issues gone ignored for years, awkwardly trying to find his place. Growing up to fast and without guidance. His own mother doesn't understand his needs or her own. And is often repulsed by his behavior.She shoplifts to satisfy her own emptiness. He gets no h...more
Mar 05, 2013
Kara
marked it as to-read
I'm ready to devour this book like I have with all the others this amazing author has written!
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A wonderful story by an author with a unique writing style. If you liked Two Rivers by T. Greenwood, you will also thoroughly enjoy this book as well. It deals with issues that are very relevant today.
In full disclosure, I am the publisher of this book; but that hasn't had any bearing on my review. I am typically a thriller reader but this literary fiction novel was great.
In full disclosure, I am the publisher of this book; but that hasn't had any bearing on my review. I am typically a thriller reader but this literary fiction novel was great.
This was an intensely sad story centered around a 12 year old boy who has been bullied his entire life. You see the effects of this bullying on the boy, Trevor, and also his whole family. This is a dysfunctional family, but the love is there. The father is plagued by financial problems in his junkyard business and his elderly father who is a hoarder. Mom lives with dreams of prosperity, and deals with it by shoplifting. Son, Trevor, deals with daily bullying and gets into trouble if he fights ba...more
Thirteen year old Trevor, his little sister Grace, and his parents Kurt and Elsbeth make up one side of this intricate story. On the other side is Crystal whose life took an unexpected turn when she became pregnant at seventeen.
GRACE is written in a style that reminds me of books by Jodi Piccoult. Author T. Greenwood takes her readers deeply into the lives and minds of her characters as she gradually reveals their personal issues and their often complicated connections.
Trevor is suffering at the...more
GRACE is written in a style that reminds me of books by Jodi Piccoult. Author T. Greenwood takes her readers deeply into the lives and minds of her characters as she gradually reveals their personal issues and their often complicated connections.
Trevor is suffering at the...more
Greenwood has written a heartrending story about a dysfunctional family living in a dysfunctional society. Once I started this novel I was unable to put it down! At times it was agonizing to read, knowing that Trevor was being bullied and picked on, yet it always turned out to be his fault. Knowing that he had no one to turn to in order to express his emotions and feelings! I do not think anyone reading this novel would be unemotional, because Greenwood pulls at the gut and heart strings like no...more
Tammy Greenwood is a master at writing riveting family drama, and this book might just be her best yet. Kurt and Elsbeth have been together forever it seems, and they've fallen into a number of common traps--accidental pregnancy that canceled college plans, taking over Kurt's family business after his brother was driven out of town, his mother died and his father became ill. The recession and a refinanced mortgage that now involved a huge balloon payment made things that much worse. Then there w...more
1st from greenwood for me, paperback, 2012...there's a in memory of: followed by a list of 18 names...and all the other tragic casualties of hatred and intolerance.
did a search of many of the names...most if not all names on the list are victims of bullying...most gay-bullying...suicides...although one was not portrayed as gay and i didn't search each name on the list...one name showed up w/a girl suicide...the names seem to be all male...although this name that appeared side-by-side w/a female....more
did a search of many of the names...most if not all names on the list are victims of bullying...most gay-bullying...suicides...although one was not portrayed as gay and i didn't search each name on the list...one name showed up w/a girl suicide...the names seem to be all male...although this name that appeared side-by-side w/a female....more
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I’ve read all of T. Greenwood’s books, loved them all, and this is truly her most remarkable. The writing, the setting, the emotional stakes are all stunning. This starts out with tremendous power and the tension is kept throughout as we try to figure out how troubled teen Trevor gets to his current place (and what exactly this current place involves). Where I thought this book was going is not where it ended up and I mean that in the best possible way.
As with her other books, in Grace, the char...more
As with her other books, in Grace, the char...more
5 likes · like · see review
This book was a great, quick read, and not because it was light on substance--which it definitely was not. All of the characters were developed well, but when the story focused on 12-year-old Trevor, it really picked up to the next level. The descriptions of the bullying he endured, and the failures of the adults in his life to help him out with it, was heart breaking. All in all, a great read, and I can't wait to read others by the author!
Another captivating, heartbreaking, beautifully written story by T Greenwood. A struggling young family and a local teen each pulled to their breaking point by fairly common problems: financial trouble, bullying, pregnancy and loss, teen angst, old wounds - with an overlay both hidden (kleptomania) and blatant (hoarding) mental illness. The shifting viewpoints and interwoven storylines of these beautifully developed characters absorbed me completely. It ended too quickly - though I loved the end...more
A mesmerizing read which captures your attention from the opening chapter. Thoughts of what could have brought the “story” to this point run foremost in your mind. There is no choice but to read on and discover for yourself! A highly emotional journey in which the characters find themselves held prisoner by even their most simplistic of desires promises to keep the reader committed to turning the pages until all becomes clear, as snapshot in time, also held prisoner. Two Rivers, an out of the wa...more
This novel was gripping, hard to put down, and I got so wrapped up in it towards the end that I actually had the feeling of 'where am I? what?' when the phone rang and startled me back to my own reality.
Story follows one family for a year, season by season, as the characters race through life headed for a train wreck. From one father who cannot love to another who withholds his love, and a mom who feels detached from her 13-year-old son(who's unplanned early pregnancy pretty much sets her futur...more
Story follows one family for a year, season by season, as the characters race through life headed for a train wreck. From one father who cannot love to another who withholds his love, and a mom who feels detached from her 13-year-old son(who's unplanned early pregnancy pretty much sets her futur...more
Colleen wrote in one of her reviews, "There's a train wreck coming ...." and that's how it is with this book.
Hard for me to say anything about this book without giving the whole thing away. I did hear Tammy Greenwood read from this book and then talk about it a bit and one of the things that she said was that she had really come to love Kurt, the father, and Elspeth, the mother. For most of the book I couldn't imagine how anyone could love Elspeth and I wasn't so sure about Kurt either, given wh...more
Hard for me to say anything about this book without giving the whole thing away. I did hear Tammy Greenwood read from this book and then talk about it a bit and one of the things that she said was that she had really come to love Kurt, the father, and Elspeth, the mother. For most of the book I couldn't imagine how anyone could love Elspeth and I wasn't so sure about Kurt either, given wh...more
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Amazing story. It's hard to feel too bad about your life as you read about these wounded and hurting people. Ms. Greenwood hits all the right buttons to make you feel so many things. As I read the book I was full of emotions, mainly fear, apprehension, and pity for the hurting characters she portrays. It seems that there is no fix for all the problems that they encounter and endure. Yet life can change and there is redemption for wrong. Justice and grace are elements that make life endurable and...more
This book was good, but intense. It was an up-close view of bullying and the ways that it damages not only the child who is the victim, but also that child's family. The one thing I hated in the book was how easily the child was blamed for the bullying he experienced, and how the school administrators never seemed to see the perpetrators of the bullying provoking this child into protecting himself - instead, opting to punish and reprimand the victim. And his family just thought he was a little w...more
I was enthralled with Grace by T. Greenwood from the opening chapter. She tells us the story of a family in Two Rivers, VT and that of a checkout girl from the local Walgreens. Their stories intertwine seamlessly and in ways that seem unexpected, yet so fitting. Every single character has a depth to them, making them all alive beyond the page. I grew attached to all of her carefully constructed characters, dying to know what the final pages would reveal about them all. As a teacher, this novel h...more
I've loved everything T. Greenwood has written and looked forward to reading this one. At first I was a little worried that there was too much going on in this book--it covers an awful lot of ground and numerous social and personal issues. But it's wonderful, and the story spins out so well ( pretty gracefully, pun intended). You see inside the characters and watch their struggles with an impending sense of doom that something big and awful is going to happen but you're not exactly sure what. (i...more
I enjoyed reading the book and loved the development of all the characters. It seemed like all the characters were fighting their own version of quicksand throughout the book.
I found Trevor's teacher as the bright spot in the book - she was the only solid support for Trevor. The author really did a good job of detailing Trevor's emotions and inability to handle the terrible abuse at school. Although there were many story lines - a hoarder grandfather, teen mother that gives up her baby and a mo...more
I found Trevor's teacher as the bright spot in the book - she was the only solid support for Trevor. The author really did a good job of detailing Trevor's emotions and inability to handle the terrible abuse at school. Although there were many story lines - a hoarder grandfather, teen mother that gives up her baby and a mo...more
T. Greenwood is a favorite of mine. Her prose is pitch-perfect and heart wrenching. She manages to capture the human experience with a keen eye. I cannot rave enough about her. Her latest novel, Grace, is no exception. We return to Two Rivers to meet the Kennedy's and a teenage mother who just gave up her baby for adoption. The way their worlds collide is significant, dramatic, and so real.
Kurt is a lovable character. One thing about Greenwood is that she is able to show character flaws in a be...more
Kurt is a lovable character. One thing about Greenwood is that she is able to show character flaws in a be...more
3.5 A dysfunctional family, though they don;t see themselves as such. The mother too wrapped up in her daughter and the father who doesn't seem to see or understand exactly what is son is going through. Felt so bad fr the character Kyle, though he did have a teacher who encouraged and became a sort of safe haven for the abuse he took at the hands of some of his schoolmates. Very well and touchingly written, this story has one of the most shocking opening chapters I have read in a while and reall...more
I'm giving this book two stars. Not because it isn't written well, or because T. Greenwood is not a talented writer, but this was a very hard book for me to get into. It was very depressing, and there wasn't must suspense, mystery, or romance in it. To be honest, maybe there is....but I didn't get around to reading it because I wasn't able to finish it. I REALLY wanted to get into this book and tried to MANY times....but after several attempts I found myself "dreading" having to pick up this boo...more
I couldn't read fast enough. Good book club book for discussion.
The author did a really good job keeping the reader on edge and guessing with this one. Excellent story about a family on the edge, and a realistic portrayal of how close the edge actually is for all of us. I enjoyed how Greenwood let us see the characters through their own eyes, and then let us see them through the eyes of others. It was a great way to show how easily the exact same set of circumstances can be completely misconstrued, depending upon whose eyes are doing the viewing. The ending...more
Liked the characters, way too much exposition. And where was the plot? I kept waiting for the inciting incident to happen but it came so damn late in the book I was very disappointed.
This marks the second novel I've read in which I was taken completely out of the story because an editor did not do their job (see my review of Plan B by Jonathan Tropper). Pro tip: Tupperware is NOT SOLD IN STORES. You can find pieces on eBay, and you can probably find used Tupperware items at thrift shops, but yo...more
This marks the second novel I've read in which I was taken completely out of the story because an editor did not do their job (see my review of Plan B by Jonathan Tropper). Pro tip: Tupperware is NOT SOLD IN STORES. You can find pieces on eBay, and you can probably find used Tupperware items at thrift shops, but yo...more
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I have enjoyed all of this author's books. She has a gift for creating stories that really pull me in and make it hard for me to put her books down. This story is about a family who is struggling--parents have been together since they were teens, a 13 year old son who is deeply troubled, and serious financial problems. At the same time, in the same town, a teenager named Crystal has just had a baby and been forced to give it up for adoption. This book follows the stories of all these characters,...more
This is going to be a very mixed review. I was amazed at the quality of writing but disappointed in the story. Grace is a very heart wrenching story. It focuses on four character point-of-views, with their common link being Gracy, a beautiful vibrant little girl.
• Kurt – Gracy’s father. He is hard working and struggling to keep his family healthy and happy. Now he also has to shoulder the problems of his ailing father.
• Elsbeth – Gracy’s Mother – Unhappy with her choices in life and wondering wh...more
• Kurt – Gracy’s father. He is hard working and struggling to keep his family healthy and happy. Now he also has to shoulder the problems of his ailing father.
• Elsbeth – Gracy’s Mother – Unhappy with her choices in life and wondering wh...more
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T. Greenwood is the author of seven novels. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and, most recently, the Maryland State Arts Council. Two Rivers was named Best General Fiction Book at the San Diego Book Awards last year. Four of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks; THIS GLITTERING WOR...more
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Mar 23, 2013 12:53pm