"Salt Dancers" is at once a brilliant portrait of an American family, a story of the secrets families guard, and a moving account of one woman's... read full description
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Oct 07, 2007
Ellen
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I recently have read several books that I found depressing and this one certainly fits into that category. It, again, has me pondering if a good book is a book that you *enjoy* reading or if a good book is one that is capable of allowing you to experience the extreme emotions of the characters. In Salt Dancers, the main character, Julia, has returned to her childhood town after a absence of 20 years to seek answers and heal her troubled childhood. As those who has experienced turmoil in childho
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May 17, 2011
Stephanie
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Dec 14, 2008
Jamie
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Hegi writes another emotionally compelling story about families and relationships. When 41 year old Julia finds herself pregnant and unmarried she decides to confront the emotional issues from her childhood regarding her parents divorce and her father's subsequent decline into alcoholism and abuse. She soon finds herself also trying to deal with the fact that her mother abandoned the children with their father and trying to find the truth about her mother was as a person rather than this idealiz
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May 08, 2008
Sandra
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The salt dance of the title refers to a family tradition that walking over a line of salt will mean leaving cares behind. The novel clarifies that this is not so simply possible, but it also indicates that a new beginning is possible.
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Sep 19, 2011
Susan
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I've run out of Hegi's brilliant books about Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, but I didn't want to stop reading her, so I've turned to her books set in America. And this is another wonderful story, about a woman coming to terms with the past: her family's disintegration, her mother's disappearance, her father's abuse. Her path to healing, and Hegi's convincing take on the way memory is shaped by loss and longing, are redemptive to heroine and reader both.
Jul 23, 2009
Andrea
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I loved Hegi's Stones By The River, but I wonder if I've now been "spoiled" by my MFA turning into a more discriminating reader. Or maybe she just wrote a thudder on this one. Bits of it were lovely, but mostly it lacked tension, had slack dialogue, and was ultimately a character study, not a story. And, in that, I fear what I hate most about this book is what I do the most of in my own writing - i.e. sit back and study a character and fail to actually tell a story.
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Jul 07, 2011
Kelley
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a pretty confusing book about a pregnant-at-41 woman’s complicated relationship with her abusive alcoholic father and her absent mother who left when she was a child. I thought the language of this book was really beautiful and it didn’t take me long to read the book but I wish there was a little more resolution at the end. Instead of a crescendo, this book pretty much ended with a thud.
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Jun 25, 2011
Kelly
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What I really like about this book is that the reader becomes aware of truth and reality as Julia, the main character, does. Heig makes us take the same journey as Julia does because she writes the story in a nonlinear fashion. And the ending is not wrapped up pretty in a bow but is left a bit unresolved (like life). It's a sad tale, but it's not oppressive or depressing.
Jan 17, 2012
Jan
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Story about a mother that leaves her smothering husband and her two children. It leaves the children empty and battered. The father beats the daughter.
The story is a story of the daughter's past and her thoughts about being left by her mother. It didn't seem to me that too much happened in the story- not as satisfying a read as 'Stones from the River' by far.
The story is a story of the daughter's past and her thoughts about being left by her mother. It didn't seem to me that too much happened in the story- not as satisfying a read as 'Stones from the River' by far.
Jan 25, 2010
Shannon
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Let's say Hegi had never written Stones From the River. I might have liked this book more. But SFTR is a hard act to follow and I found this book fell flat for me. It's too bad. Nonetheless, I'll continue to read what Hegi puts out because she is a superb writer and you never know when she might again reach the heights of SFTR.
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Feb 01, 2011
Judith
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I love Ursula Hegi's writing style, but there was something abrupt about the ending of this book. I felt there was a LOT that didn't get written or that she had missed her deadline. Perhaps that is her intent and I'm too dense to get it, but I was left flipping through the last blank pages hoping more words would appear...
Jan 21, 2009
Chana
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A daughter tries to resolve her difficult childhood before she gives birth to her own daughter. Covers sad and disturbing topics such as parental desertion, physical abuse and the internal dichotomy of loving and hating parents. A sad and emotionally challenging book.
Sep 28, 2011
Lanea
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Salt Dancers is the story of a woman coming to terms with her own history as an abused child before she gives birth to a child she never planned to have. Like most of Hegi's books, the novel is intensely emotional, and deals with questions of childhood, family, abandonment, loss, friendship . . . the biggies.
I love everything the woman writes, but I didn't like this one quite as much as I liked the novels set in Germany. I wanted a bit more of a story to surface connecting the pro More...
I love everything the woman writes, but I didn't like this one quite as much as I liked the novels set in Germany. I wanted a bit more of a story to surface connecting the pro More...
Aug 12, 2011
Jean
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A griping story of the pain that never heals when mother walks away from her children. Told by the daughter. It is filled with wonderful descriptions and captures the voice of the daughter as a child and an adult. However, the ending seemed not as strong as the rest of the book.
Jan 24, 2011
Nancy
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Love Ursula Hegi. Not as moving as Stone From The River, but she really delves into the psychological aspects of women. The things we worry about, relationships with our siblings, parents and children. She is a wonderful writer.
Jul 05, 2010
Maggie
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When the publisher introduces the book with "Julia returns home to a father she hasn't seen in twenty-three years, and to the memories of secrecy, betrayal, abuse and abandonment that haunt her still." What did we expect????
Nov 12, 2010
Jenny
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Intresting book. Emotionally not a smooth ride, but thats Ok. I don't know that I was looking for a smooth ride with this book. I'm kinda ok with having crashed through along with the main charicters.
Jan 24, 2010
Ginnie
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This was a very moving book, quite possibly because the story hit so close to home. I enjoyed it very much and highly recommend it. It did seem like it wrapped up very quickly - too quickly? Maybe I just wanted more!
Jan 04, 2010
Joy
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I tried to pace myself so I'd have a book for awhile, but I read it all night. Great characters, like the jacket says, complex characters that are entirely believable.
Feb 28, 2011
Diana
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I hate to give Ms. Hegi a 3 on anything; her previous novels rank among some of my favorite books.
This book, however, didn't move me on nearly the same level. It's not so much a novel as a really long character study. I didn't connect with Julia on any level and end up far more fascinated with her brother... what's the rest of *his* story? I guess that's where my disappointment is rooted - in books like Stones from the River, there's such a weaving of lives, stories, etc. Here all we More...
This book, however, didn't move me on nearly the same level. It's not so much a novel as a really long character study. I didn't connect with Julia on any level and end up far more fascinated with her brother... what's the rest of *his* story? I guess that's where my disappointment is rooted - in books like Stones from the River, there's such a weaving of lives, stories, etc. Here all we More...
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Mar 08, 2008
Emily
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This book is Hegi's second novel and, though it received less acclaim than her debut, I found it quite good. It's the story of Julia, a recently divorced and unexpectedly pregnant woman who returns to her childhood home and is forced to confront memories of abuse and abandonment. Her relationships with her father and brother and her concept of her mother are excellently described by Hegi in the context of a youth spent at a home on a beautiful lake. A focus on water and swimming add to the ha
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Apr 04, 2009
Emily
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This was a really abstract book and got me thinking a lot. It was so interesting and hard to put down.
May 24, 2010
Debbie
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Iliked stones from the river a lot and floating in my mother's poind was also better than this. These characters arent fleshed out enough, I didnt feel them and mostly did not feel for them.Maybe book club discussion will change my mind.
Aug 10, 2011
Anne
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This was a good story, but I felt the book jumped around too much from past to present to daydream. I normally like this in a book, but in this book it could do it from paragraph to paragraph without warning. It always took me a minute to figure out where and when we were. This book just never really grabbed me.
Dec 31, 2009
Charlo
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A O.K. book, I loved her "Stones from the River", this wasn't as good, but a quick read
Apr 12, 2009
Stephanie
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I loved this book and all the emotions it evoked as well as her beautiful images.
Feb 06, 2010
Christine
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A little hard to get through (pacing-wise and emotionally), but worth the read.
