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Necessary Woman
378 page novel by Helen Van Slyke titled A Necessary Woman and published in 1979.
425 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
29 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 13, 2017
Van Slyke's "A Necessary Woman" is, like her other books I've read, a soap opera on paper. Her books always follow the same formula:
1) Characters got problems.
2) Characters fall in love.
3) Minor characters died (usually two or three).
4) Characters make the right life choices and then there's a Happily Ever After finale.
The rating would be higher (four stars) as I always enjoy her books, but this deal with homosexuality with a homophobic point of view. Here’s an example: "I'd want to kill one of my boys if he'd gone that way. And if I had a daughter who'd chosen to marry a 'convert', I'd do everything in my power to stop it." So, if you can ignore that, "A Necessary Woman" at least has a great amount of melodrama, descriptions of exotic places and the heroine's sister is a bitch with a capital B.
1) Characters got problems.
2) Characters fall in love.
3) Minor characters died (usually two or three).
4) Characters make the right life choices and then there's a Happily Ever After finale.
The rating would be higher (four stars) as I always enjoy her books, but this deal with homosexuality with a homophobic point of view. Here’s an example: "I'd want to kill one of my boys if he'd gone that way. And if I had a daughter who'd chosen to marry a 'convert', I'd do everything in my power to stop it." So, if you can ignore that, "A Necessary Woman" at least has a great amount of melodrama, descriptions of exotic places and the heroine's sister is a bitch with a capital B.
June 11, 2015
Helen Van Slyke sembra in grado di anticipare ogni pensiero e ogni sensazione che i suoi personaggi suscitano: anticipa le nostre proteste, facendo rispondere ai nostri dubbi quegli stessi personaggi che vivono solo tra le pagine stampate di 'Una Donna Necessaria'.
E così, accompagnamo Mary, Jayne, ma anche Michael, Patricia, Gayl, Christoper, Terry e Paula in questa crociera, con tutti i cambiamenti che questi due mesi di mare portano nella vita di queste persone. Un romanzo introspettivo, vario, che ci illustra il modo di vedere la vita dei 'vecchi' tanto quanto quello dei 'giovani'.
E così, accompagnamo Mary, Jayne, ma anche Michael, Patricia, Gayl, Christoper, Terry e Paula in questa crociera, con tutti i cambiamenti che questi due mesi di mare portano nella vita di queste persone. Un romanzo introspettivo, vario, che ci illustra il modo di vedere la vita dei 'vecchi' tanto quanto quello dei 'giovani'.
November 3, 2020
Too long and tedious for my taste. When I saw it in my work's "lost and found" thought it was going to be a cruise ship romance that I'd breeze through before donating to thrift shop, but it wasn't at all. There was death and belief in gay conversion and don't know what kind of reader I could recommend it to.
August 6, 2025
I picked up this book not knowing how it would be, but it was a good choice! Very different in romance, family and friendships! I very much enjoyed it. Characters were good, and the descriptive way the writer wrote it was good as well. A very good read!
August 23, 2019
This book did not really appeal to me, I was hoping it was more about traveling.
It was too much like a soap opera.
It was too much like a soap opera.
January 29, 2013
The Love Boat meets Harlequin Romance with (slightly) better writing.
It isn't bad, its just that it isn't all that original.
You even get the must-have person walking on the ledge of a balcony drunked-out and drugged-out scene read and seen oh so many times before.
And to make matters worse, the bloody ship doesn't even sink ;-)
A Necessary Woman? naw, more like a bunch of Needy Women and Men.
A Necessay Woman is the story of two women and two generations. The chance winning of a cruise to the South Pacific changes the life of thirty-eight-year-old Mary Farr Morgan. A thousand uncertainties preceded that bleak winter morning when she sailed from San Francisco, leaving behind the charming, unrealistic husband she'd loved and supported for fifteen years. With her traveling companion, her beloved twenty-one-year-old niece, Jayne, Mary now must face the conflicts of all modern women caught between the demands of duty and the need for survival.
Helen Van Slyke has earned a place on best-seller lists in American fiction abd a wide international following for her novels, now translated into fourteen languages.
It isn't bad, its just that it isn't all that original.
You even get the must-have person walking on the ledge of a balcony drunked-out and drugged-out scene read and seen oh so many times before.
And to make matters worse, the bloody ship doesn't even sink ;-)
A Necessary Woman? naw, more like a bunch of Needy Women and Men.
A Necessay Woman is the story of two women and two generations. The chance winning of a cruise to the South Pacific changes the life of thirty-eight-year-old Mary Farr Morgan. A thousand uncertainties preceded that bleak winter morning when she sailed from San Francisco, leaving behind the charming, unrealistic husband she'd loved and supported for fifteen years. With her traveling companion, her beloved twenty-one-year-old niece, Jayne, Mary now must face the conflicts of all modern women caught between the demands of duty and the need for survival.
Helen Van Slyke has earned a place on best-seller lists in American fiction abd a wide international following for her novels, now translated into fourteen languages.
August 13, 2022
I wasn't prepared to like this book at all. I was only reading it because I am on a quest to read as many books as I can find written before 1970. However, this book was published in 1979 but was written in 1977. I thought that was close enough.
Women's Lib had kicked in; abortion was legal; free love was still in style; and homosexuals were still maligned. In fact, I was shocked by the adjectives that still applied to gay men!! This book was totally, shockingly, and politically incorrect, and I was horrified. Geez, this book was written in the frickin dark ages--around the time I was out of high school and in college and married with a child!!
I didn't like the ending; I could relate to the personality dynamics especially when it involved mother-daughter issues; and I hated the controlling male crap. Thank goodness, my children are Millennials with excellent educations and metro-sexual ideals where no one is black or white or male or female just human.
I'm just so frickin anxious right now. I need to read a book about a nautical disaster just to level my playing field!
Women's Lib had kicked in; abortion was legal; free love was still in style; and homosexuals were still maligned. In fact, I was shocked by the adjectives that still applied to gay men!! This book was totally, shockingly, and politically incorrect, and I was horrified. Geez, this book was written in the frickin dark ages--around the time I was out of high school and in college and married with a child!!
I didn't like the ending; I could relate to the personality dynamics especially when it involved mother-daughter issues; and I hated the controlling male crap. Thank goodness, my children are Millennials with excellent educations and metro-sexual ideals where no one is black or white or male or female just human.
I'm just so frickin anxious right now. I need to read a book about a nautical disaster just to level my playing field!
June 13, 2014
'Ellosa dan lo que pueden. Ni mas ni menos. No son dioses a quienes hay que complacer, ni demonios a los que es necesario exorcizar. Estan simplemente alli, y lo unico que nosotros podemos hacer es esperar que comprendan cuando no somos perfectas. Y tratar de comprender, nosotros tambien, cuando ellos no son todo lo que nos gustaria que fuesen.'
November 25, 2010
Veramente pesante, noioso, senza un minimo di nerbo e di coinvolgimento. Ho provato ad insistere e sono arrivata con molta fatica intorno a pagina 100, ma poi non ce l'ho fatta più e la noia ha preso il sopravvento.
Read
April 29, 2008vanslyke,helen
October 19, 2011
A middle-aged unhappy wife falls in love with another man.
Want to read
May 24, 2014Description matches my copy which is in English.
March 1, 2016
PB-B @ 1983 - 10/83. Romance.
April 9, 2014
I just could not get into this book. Sorry Karlene not my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews