Stormy Weather: A Novel
by Paulette Jiles
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 214)
Paulette Jiles is very detailed and descriptive in her tales of following the Texan oil strikes during the depression. I felt as though I was there. I found it interesting in that some things never change, and I could relate to her story of a family trying to survive by going where the money is -- oil strikes and horse racing. I was drawn into her story with great interest, but was quite disappointed with the ending. There is so much emotion and intensity throughout the book, but the author seem...more
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Read in June, 2008
Stormy Weather follows a family in Texas during the dust bowl. Paulette Jiles style is a little jarring at first, but I soon got used to it. It jumps from topic to topic mid-paragraph.
Life during that era was very difficult for a lot of people. It's hard to believe that that was only 70 years ago. Times have sure changed. We hear talk of "recession" now, and how hard life is. No way. We have it so well in America.
I couldn't decide whether the focus was supposed to be on the ...more
Life during that era was very difficult for a lot of people. It's hard to believe that that was only 70 years ago. Times have sure changed. We hear talk of "recession" now, and how hard life is. No way. We have it so well in America.
I couldn't decide whether the focus was supposed to be on the ...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Historical fiction fans
I loved this book. She is a great author. The story of a young scrappy girl struggling through the depression era with her family to get by is gripping. I love that they are able to survive and hang on to this little race horse that brings them all together in the end.
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Read in May, 2008
This is an easy read that has good characters and good writing. Paulette Jiles used to be a poet, and I thought most of the imagery and and over-all story-telling was very pretty--and I loved the dialog. It is set in Texas during the Depression and involves a family of three sisters and their mother overcoming the odds and making a life for themselves on the old family farm. It's not an original story, but it gave me a good sense of what the Depression might have been like. I liked reading about...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Mary by:
Mary H.recommends it for: anyone stuggling-great for perspective!
A sort of female Grapes of Wrath, this is a story of deep, unrelenting poverty and the daily struggle for survival during the depression and dustbowl years. After a nomadic lifestyle with a hard-drinking, heavy-gambling father; Jeannie, her mother and two sisters return to their deserted, run-down ancestoral Texas ranch after his death. Jeannie, at the age of 20, takes on the challenge of scraping a life from the hard-baked earth and unrelenting drought, as she tries to figure out what her own ...more
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Read in August, 2008
Set in East Texas during the Depression when oil was king (isn't it still?), this is a story of the survival of four women, a mother and her three daughters. For years they had followed their husband/father as he followed the oil rigs from town to town. They were dirt poor as were many at that time. An accident brings about the death of the father and the mother decides to return to her family home, abandoned since her parent's deaths. Jeanine, the middle daughter, decides that they will mak...more
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Read in November, 2008
This was an insightful glimpse into life during the depression in drought-devastated Texas. For me it brought a personal look at something I only knew about from history books. Not what I'd call a page-turner, but I thought it gave a good sense of the seemingly never-ending poverty and exhaustion of the period.
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Read in October, 2008
This book was just "okay" for me.
The fictional story takes place during the great depression. The main characters of the story is a family who moves from place to place in order to find work. The father is a drunkard who eventually dies in the book. The family then returns to Texas to the home they left earlier in the book. It talks of the hard times they endured during this period in history.
One of the reasons that the story was just "okay" is because I wasn't ab...more
The fictional story takes place during the great depression. The main characters of the story is a family who moves from place to place in order to find work. The father is a drunkard who eventually dies in the book. The family then returns to Texas to the home they left earlier in the book. It talks of the hard times they endured during this period in history.
One of the reasons that the story was just "okay" is because I wasn't ab...more
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Read in July, 2008
An interesting take on the Dust Bowl, the Depression, and the state of rural Southern America leading up to WWII. I like the fact the author chose to focus primarily on the middle child of a family--not a typical choice. I was pleased with how she centered much of the story around female characters and their experiences as women, especially in times when women were at the mercy of men who had trouble finding jobs and of society, which expected them to stifle their ambitions and take care of thei...more
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Read in November, 2007
This was a good book about a depression era family struggling to survive in the dust bowl and hold on to what they have. The father in this story is a gambler and loses more than he can afford to. The women fight to survive his losses and make a life for themselves. It was slow going in parts, but a good read overall.
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I quit on this book to read a couple of different baseball books and the new Jacqueline Carey, but I am glad I came back to it. The writing is rich with imagery, and the plot, while a bit dull, carries with it the depth and texture of humanity's perseverance. The characters are keen and three-dimensional, and their lives, while incredibly hard, are not joyless. The common dramas of life play out against the backdrop of the Great Depression on the oil fields and draught-scarred farms of Texas. Wh...more
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Read in February, 2008
Paulette Jiles is an amazing storyteller. Her writing is eloquent, descriptive and moving. She writes things that you want to read twice and outloud, just to have the beauty of her words really sink in.
She is also a master at the unsappy love story, building passion with the use of just a few simple words. You really feel like her characters belong together.
Stormy Weather isn't as good as Enemy Women but once the family settles into the farm, the story really grabs a hold of you and draw...more
She is also a master at the unsappy love story, building passion with the use of just a few simple words. You really feel like her characters belong together.
Stormy Weather isn't as good as Enemy Women but once the family settles into the farm, the story really grabs a hold of you and draw...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Dana by:
Book Club
"It was okay" about covers it. I don't have much of a connection to Texas during the Dust Bowl/Depression years, nor to the oil industry, and this book didn't pull me in. The main character and her struggles were interesting, but I didn't really care too much which guy she ended up with at the end, mostly because it didn't strike me that SHE cared much. I learned more about the Great Depression, but I think I would have rather read an actual memoir or non-fiction piece.
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I liked Enemy Women better, but after I finished Stormy Weather-the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
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This is my current pick for book group. I hope it lives up to its hype!
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Read in October, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone who liked 'Grapes of Wrath'
The Stoddard family - a widowed mother and three daughters - fight their way through the depression to emerge with better lives. How they get there is a journey worth taking with them. The author is a poet and memoirist and writes beautifully. I also highly recommend her first novel 'Enemy Women' about the Civil War, women in prison, and southeast Missouri.
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Read in September, 2008
recommended to Lmj by:
Barnes and Noble (when went to see Evanovich in 2007)
The Stoddard family is beset by an unbelievable number of problems during the dust bowl days after the Depression. The family consists of three girls who fight to keep their home as solvent as possible despite the jailhouse death of their father and their mother's constant belief that a wildcat oil well will come in. Well-written, well-developed characters.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.30 (132 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.30 (126 ratings) number of reviews: 47
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"And she understood, all by herself, without reading it in a novel or hearing it on a radio program, that falling passionately in love with someone, without reservation or holding back, was good for the heart. For its valves and its arteries and that invisible shadow of the heart clled the soul. Falling in love was good for the soul.
"
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