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Apr 20, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2008

Laura rated it:

I read this book in fifth grade, and I loved it so much. I bought it earlier this spring at Borders (I think it was on sale because it’s newbery honor sticker is the wrong color), though I just picked it up.

Vicky Austin goes to her grandfather’s house on Seven Bay Island. Each day, her grandfather only seems to grow weaker from Leukemia. The book begins with the Austin’s family friend Commander Rodney’s funeral. There, she meets her older brother’s friend Adam, who she thinks she li More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2009

Megan rated it:

I first read this book as an early teen--I can see now, reading it as an adult, that having read this book (along with all Madeleine L'Engle's other books) at twelve and thirteen clearly had a profound impact on my world view. L'Engle's writing has a depth and profundity that draws on emotions of which most writers only attempt to scratch the surface.

I think all developling adolescents should read this book and all the surrounding ones, if only to see that there is more out there th More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2009

D rated it:

L'Engle seems to achieve that which Stephenie Meyer is, as yet, technically unable: a respectful, plausible narration of square pegs, alienated dreamers, and teens wiser than their years finding authentic connection. L'Engle's form is by no means flawless, but Meyer and others would do well to follow her lead and learn to show their protagonists' extraordinariness, not dictate, begging us to believe.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2009

Amanda rated it:

I LOVE this book it is amazing! i've read this book about 5 times and i'm still not sick of it.it's about a girl named vicky who falls for a guy named adam. he doesn't really think she's all that special until he realizes she can communicate w/ dolphins! Then it becomes a battle for her heart because 3 guys are interested in her. Lessons you can learn from this book is to not take life and your friends and family for granted because no one has them forever. Also, it teaches you how to figure you More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2008

Jacqueline rated it:

This was my second time reading this book. The first time I read it, which was quite awhile ago, it immediately became one of my favorite books. Reading it again as an older and perhaps more discriminating reader, I still enjoyed it immensely but was more aware of flaws.

Although there are some deep elements to the theme, the major over riding focus of the plot is about Vicky Austin's relationship with three young men. The boys are very different from each other, and although she l More...

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Mar 09, 2007

Dan rated it:

In my youth I was on a L'engle tear having gone through the "Time" series...however I didn't get the memo that L'engle's writing ministry developed into one catered towards guiding pre-adolescent females through their awkward years.

Needless to say, I caught on when I realized that the books really weren't speaking to me like the others were...and I quietly returned this one back to the library and saw that I was the only dude to read the book for the past decade...

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1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2012

Nikhilesh rated it:

I think I would give this 3+1/2 stars but hesitate to give it four. The first time I picked up the book I was deterred by the strong teenage romance undercurrent running through it and put it down after a few pages. However I returned to it and I'm glad I did. At one level it is a story about a young girl trying to come to terms with the attentions of three very different kinds of young men, the emotional turmoil of adolescence and sexual awakening as well as her place in the world. Foremostly t More...

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May 12, 2011

C rated it:

I discovered Madeleine L'Engle in elementary school and poured through every one of her books that our local library carried by the sixth grade. But this one in particular was especially moving and became a guiding part of my teenage years for it's hauntingly beautiful prose, the romance of communing with nature, and most of all, for it's intelligent and stubborn protagonist - Vicky Austin.
<spoiler>
Vicky herself is the strongest piece of this book, as well as the entire series More...

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Dec 19, 2009

Sarrina rated it:

I had to read Meet the Austins and The Moon by Night, the first two Austin Family novels, in eighth grade. While I didn't like Meet the Austins as it read like a juvenile fiction book, I fell in love with The Moon by Night and the book's heroine, Vicky Austin. I reread the book so many times, the pages are coming out.

Surprisingly, I never picked up A Ring of Endless Light until college. My sister read it for school and told me that it was a fellow Vicky Austin novel and was surpri More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2009

Shenek rated it:

I've been going through a pile of books that I've been given to see if they are worth keeping. Most aren't worth commenting about...this book on the other hand left me a bit perplexed about how well I liked it.

The back of the book and the first few chapters it seemed like a realistic fiction coming of age/teen romance (yuck-in my opinion). I was irritated about the 3 boys interested in the 15 year old girl. And I felt that she had to make too many decisions about intimacy that I thi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 25, 2009

Bethy rated it:

Great read from what I remember from high school. I like L'Engle's writing.

However, from what I remember, I think she paints the Austins as a perfect family, which doesn't exist. Also, though this is not at all a "naughty" romance novel, and more of a young-adult book (although the main character's three prospective love interests are a big subject), I wanted to use this to comment on the subject of romance in reading. A sermon on sexual purity (by Bob at ECC) let me k More...

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Jun 14, 2010

Sierra rated it:

This book was one of my elective reads, I think I am becoming increasingly more alarmed that I have not read more Madeleine L'Engle in my life, and I plan to amend this immediately. This book follows Vicky, who returns to a summer home and becomes involved with a science project involving communication with dolphins. Meanwhile, she is learning how she feels about religion, death, and boyfriends. This book is not to be confused with the horrible, watered down, counterfeit Disney movie that shares More...

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Oct 24, 2010

Amanda rated it:

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Jul 13, 2011

Diana rated it:

Sometimes you hear about a book that sounds really dumb and you just have to read it. I remember liking A Wrinkle in Time when I was a kid and found out about this lame-sounding dolphin book and brought it home from the library on impulse.

I probably would have looooved this book when I was about 11. The reasons for this are twofold. First of all, it's packed to the brim with adolescent wish fulfillment that would thrill a tween or young teenager, but bores the life out of an older More...

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Jul 23, 2011

mstan rated it:

I was so disappointed in this, because it is highly rated by many of my friends, and the poetry is truly lovely. Maybe I would have loved it if I had read it when I was a teenager, or if I had read the first three books in the Austin family chronicles...

Things that bothered me:

1) The cluelessness of the female protagonist, who lamented her lack of looks yet managed to snare three boys in one summer and string them all along for a while, going from one date to another, someti More...

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Jul 15, 2011

Roger rated it:

This Young Adult novel is about death, incredibly enough. And not death as in vampires or zombies either, but the everyday deaths of pets, strangers, friends, and beloved grandparents. There's a lot of reflection on the human condition and the meaning and consequences of death, rooted in a gently Christian but non-denominational spirituality.

And in the middle of all this, to keep you interested, the narrator, Vicky Austen, not quite sixteen, is being courted by three young men. Wh More...

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Mar 08, 2011

Meagan rated it:

I couldn't have found this book at a more perfect time. L'Engle's poignant tale of a teenager who struggles through one unforgettable summer, balancing three love interests with a summer job, with watching her grandfather die of cancer. My grandfather passed away earlier this year from cancer, and this book really hit home with me. The depth of the emotion with which L'Engle writes not only touched me deeply, it gave me hope that there is still light in this world, that there is still love and l More...

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Aug 08, 2011

Alexandra rated it:

This was very enjoyable to me, to see how those who do not have the gospel in their lives have to wonder and are not sure of what comes after life. I'm so grateful that I know exactly where I'm going and what the Plan is.
In this brilliant installment in the Austins series, Vicky and her family are spending most of her summer on the island where her grandfather lives. As she watches her dear grandpa's condition deteriorate, she begins to wonder how the world can even contain life when t More...

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Dec 24, 2011

Colleen rated it:

This is not a book to read quickly in a gulp -- like I did, because it was a present for my sister, which I was supposed to be wrapping. Oops.

This is one of the darker books L'Engle has written -- which is why I'm gifting it to a sister who just attended her first wake and sickbed. I can't imagine a better way to grapple, like protagonist Vicky Austin does, with the Big Questions in life, than to a backdrop of beach, dolphins, love, poetry, and philosophy.

That said, if you r More...

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Aug 06, 2011

Margaret added it

Finished this last night and like most of the readers here, I had mixed feelings about this book. The very first chapter had me crying since it was so much like some funerals I've been to. As I got more into the book I felt like I really couldn't relate to Vicky - when I was 15 I was still shy, awkward, unathletic and tried desparately to get boys to notice me! - but I loved her family and the family dynamics. One of my favorite characters was Rob. Being an animal person, I really liked the dolp More...

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Apr 19, 2009

Chinette rated it:

"A great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart
And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.
The end of all is hinted in the start.

When we are born we bear the seeds of plight;
Around us life and death are torn apart,
Yet a great ring of pure and endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.

It lights the world to my delight,
Infinity is presend in each part.
A loving smile contains all art,
The mo More...

1 comment like

Aug 25, 2010

stegersaurus rated it:

So this is my favorite Madeleine L'Engle book of them all, and I like to reread it every summer. (I didn't reread in 2009, so this is the first time in two years.) It's a Newbery Honor book, which I didn't even realize until this year -- this is the first year I've ever really looked at that medal on the cover and thought about it.

Even though A Wrinkle in Time is probably the best written of her children's books, I've always liked Vicky better, and I've always found Adam to be the m More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 28, 2011

Christy rated it:

This is truly one of the first books I read that inspired me; after reading this, I BECAME a reader. This is the story of a summer for Vicky Austin in which her grandfather is dying, she is dealing with three very different boys, she sees that her parents are real people, and is learning to accept the harder points of life. The first time I read it, I was into the romance. The second time, into her emotions in general. The third time, the beautiful character dynamics, expecially those of her gra More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

Fysierm rated it:

I think what was so amazing about this book is that it all seemed so very real. Vicky Austin's voice draws you in and invites you into the world of an idealistic dreamer, whose hopes and dreams reality is trying to douse like a candle with water, but she is a poet and it's amazing to see the world through her eyes.

On a minor note, I usually hate love triangles and quadrangles and useless drama. It's usually overdone and over-dramatic and adds nothing to the plot (like with Jane Eyre when she goe

More...

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Aug 21, 2009

Summer rated it:

“I love Madeleine L'Engle. She's pretty amazing in that she can really dig down into the most ugliest parts of the human heart and find some road of redemption. This is the story of Vicky Austen, a girl visiting her dying grandfather on an island. There she meets the her brothers co-worker, who's smart, tallented, and not at all interested in being with Vicky. There's also Zachary Grey, the boy who's always desperate for Vicky's attention despite his ample wealth. As Vicky learns more and more a More...

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Jun 22, 2010

Stephanie rated it:

I loved loved LOVED this book as a young teen. I'm afraid to read it now, worried it won't hold up. But I really don't think I need to read it b/c I could probably still quote huge long passages of it since I read it so often back in the day.

I remember being blown away by the imagery (at the end, with the dolphins) of time being more like an enormous tree than a river, only flowing in one direction. L'Engle's books are all about our interconnectedness with the universe, and I though More...

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May 29, 2010

Sarah rated it:

This was one of my favorite books as a child, and I can see why. It's been many years since last reading, but the characters still rang true and complex, even without my dramatic adolescent eyes. The narrative circles around one of life's big questions - what happens after you die? But it does so in a non-preachy way, incorporating the confusion, joy, and sorrow of it all, and without trying to give a single final answer. It is inspiring and beautiful, affirming life and goodness without try More...

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Jan 01, 2009

Kerri rated it:

I read this book while my own grandfather was very ill and my parents were driving down to Florida to get him, so I could definitely relate to Vicky's feelings as she faced the loss of her own beloved grandfather. I found we had a lot of other things in common as I was a bit of a poet myself at the time (none of my poems were nearly as good or deep as hers though), I to loved dolphins (and wished I could communicate with them like Vicky discovered she could) and would've adored having three guys More...

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Jan 20, 2010

Ashlie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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