[HDO]⇒ Read Gratis Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones 9781565129900 Books

Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones 9781565129900 Books

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Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones 9781565129900 Books

I wanted to love this book. I mean, a book about a bigamous family told through the point of view of two young daughters? Sign me up! And there were aspects of SILVER SPARROW that I genuinely enjoyed. However, the book as a whole never quite came together for me.

SILVER SPARROW is the story of two young women, Dana and Chaurisse, who are the daughters of a bigamist father. Only Dana is aware that her father has another family and Dana's existence must be kept a secret from her father's other family. The first half of the book is told from Dana's perspective and the second half is told from Chaurisse's perspective as she slowly begins to realize that something isn't quite right with her family.

I thought that this book was a quick, easy read that would probably be great for a beach read. The writing is solid even if the style is somewhat simplistic (similar to a YA novel). I enjoyed most of the characters and I thought that the author did a good job of portraying all the characters involved in this very complicated situation in complex and compelling ways - she didn't make any of them out to be 100% villains. I also thought that the story and the setting had a realism about them that grounded the somewhat sensational subject matter. You could see this story really happening in this town. I could picture the setting in my mind very clearly.

My problem with this book was that I thought this same story with these same characters could have been told in a much more compelling fashion. To begin with, the narrator characters (the two girls) insist on interrupting the telling of the story at hand in order to tell stories about their parents' lives which occurred before the beginning of the novel. I don't just mean an anecdote here or there - entire chapters are devoted to the parents' backstory. This irritated me - to me, this book was fundamentally about the two girls, not about their parents. The author certainly could have included some of the information in the flashback chapters through normal exposition, but there was just way too much attention devoted to the parents' backstories - it didn't add anything to novel as a whole and I always found myself wanting to skip over these chapters.

I also didn't like the fact that the first half of the novel is told from Dana's point-of-view and the second half through Chaurisse's point-of-view. I found Dana to be the more compelling of the two characters and I would have enjoyed it if the second, climactic half of the novel had been told through her point-of-view. I understand the need to have both of the girls' perspective in the novel. I just think that the novel would have worked much, much better if the entire thing had been told in alternating viewpoints (chapter to chapter) rather than the first half being about one girl and the second half being about the other girl. I think that the second half of the novel would have benefited greatly from seeing Dana's perspective.

Finally, I thought that the ending was sort of abrupt. The big reveal doesn't come until about the 90% mark and it is a rather cliché scene. I was looking forward to seeing how the big reveal actually effected both the girls and their families, but we get to see very little of this. I think it would have been better to have the big reveal happen much sooner (like at about 50-60% through the novel) and then have the book really deal with the aftermath of Chaurisse and her mother finding out about her father's other family. Even the epilogue-ish scene at the end is very abrupt and it doesn't give us much of a sense of how the girls' lives have changed in the intervening years between the end of the last chapter and the epilogue.

There were things that I liked about this novel, but I also feel like there is just so much wasted potential here. This book could have been really great with a few tweaks here and there, but as it stands, it's just average which is why I'm giving it three stars.


Tags : Silver Sparrow [Tayari Jones] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><B>From the <I>New York Times</I> Bestselling Author of <I>An American Marriage</I></B><BR /><BR /> “A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.”<BR /> —<B><I>O: The Oprah Magazine</I></B><BR /><BR /> “<I>Silver Sparrow</I> will break your heart before you even know it. Tayari Jones has written a novel filled with characters I’ll never forget. This is a book I’ll read more than once.”<BR /> —<B>Judy Blume</B><BR /><BR /> With the opening line of <I>Silver Sparrow</I>,Tayari Jones,Silver Sparrow,Algonquin Books,1565129903,Family Life,African American families;Fiction.,African American teenage girls;Fiction.,Polygamy;Fiction.,AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,African American,African American - General,African American families,African American teenage girls,An American Marriage;Oprah;Oprah's Book Club;Oprah Book Club;Oprah Winfrey;secret family;Atlanta;bigamy;book club;reading group;book group,FICTION African American General,FICTION Family Life General,FICTION General,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Coming of Age,GENERAL,General Adult,Georgia,Polygamy,United States

Silver Sparrow Tayari Jones 9781565129900 Books Reviews

This book intrigued me personally because it hit home in many ways. Although my father was not a bigamist, there were outside children and they knew us and we knew them. But Tayari uncovered latent feelings and emotions that have never been acknowledged, but definitely exist. The ending was, however, disappointing. I felt like Raleigh had a story that was never told and James true thoughts never really surfaced. There was no happy ending. It seems there was no ending at all. I think this story could have been a superb tool to help many in this type of precarious situation to better navigate the turbulence toward a much more healing experience.
3.5 stars. Sometimes I find it best to take a break between reading two books by the same author, because often the writing style is so similar that I almost feel like I'm reading the same book - if any of you can relate. Having just finished An American Marriage I dove straight into this because I loved the idea of a story about two sisters, Dana and Chaurisse (who share a bigamist father) as well as the story about their mothers. This was a very good novel - well written and engaging with well fleshed out characters - but it didn’t hook me as emotionally as her other book. It also made me a angry because I think the author was attempting to garner sympathy for ALL of the characters, but I had a strong dislike toward Gwen, the second (and illegal) wife. To knowingly marry a man with another wife and child I find personally reprehensible and had no sympathy for the emotional repercussions she had as a result of her situation. I also felt very badly for her daughter, Dana, who had to spend her life feeling second-best as a result of her mother's selfish stupidity. (And obviously I found James, the two-timing lout of a father pathetic, weak, and unfair to everyone - no sympathy AT ALL for his sorry self.) There can never be a good outcome in a situation like that. As I said, the book was well written but the pacing was a bit slow. I would have preferred to read more about the consequences and fallout of their situations and less about their backstories. While there were examples of some consequences throughout the book the ending and epilogue felt rushed.
"Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished?" So says Gwen, trying to explain her marital situation to her daughter, Dana, Gwen knows of what she speaks--she is the secret wife of a man with two families, and two daughters.
The first half of the book is narrated by secret daughter,Dana, while the second half of the story is told by Chaurisse, the acknowledged daughter. Thus, the reader sees both halves of this complicated family arrangement, and its impact on two girls as they grow up.
An exceptionally good read that kept me turning the pages.
I wanted to love this book. I mean, a book about a bigamous family told through the point of view of two young daughters? Sign me up! And there were aspects of SILVER SPARROW that I genuinely enjoyed. However, the book as a whole never quite came together for me.

SILVER SPARROW is the story of two young women, Dana and Chaurisse, who are the daughters of a bigamist father. Only Dana is aware that her father has another family and Dana's existence must be kept a secret from her father's other family. The first half of the book is told from Dana's perspective and the second half is told from Chaurisse's perspective as she slowly begins to realize that something isn't quite right with her family.

I thought that this book was a quick, easy read that would probably be great for a beach read. The writing is solid even if the style is somewhat simplistic (similar to a YA novel). I enjoyed most of the characters and I thought that the author did a good job of portraying all the characters involved in this very complicated situation in complex and compelling ways - she didn't make any of them out to be 100% villains. I also thought that the story and the setting had a realism about them that grounded the somewhat sensational subject matter. You could see this story really happening in this town. I could picture the setting in my mind very clearly.

My problem with this book was that I thought this same story with these same characters could have been told in a much more compelling fashion. To begin with, the narrator characters (the two girls) insist on interrupting the telling of the story at hand in order to tell stories about their parents' lives which occurred before the beginning of the novel. I don't just mean an anecdote here or there - entire chapters are devoted to the parents' backstory. This irritated me - to me, this book was fundamentally about the two girls, not about their parents. The author certainly could have included some of the information in the flashback chapters through normal exposition, but there was just way too much attention devoted to the parents' backstories - it didn't add anything to novel as a whole and I always found myself wanting to skip over these chapters.

I also didn't like the fact that the first half of the novel is told from Dana's point-of-view and the second half through Chaurisse's point-of-view. I found Dana to be the more compelling of the two characters and I would have enjoyed it if the second, climactic half of the novel had been told through her point-of-view. I understand the need to have both of the girls' perspective in the novel. I just think that the novel would have worked much, much better if the entire thing had been told in alternating viewpoints (chapter to chapter) rather than the first half being about one girl and the second half being about the other girl. I think that the second half of the novel would have benefited greatly from seeing Dana's perspective.

Finally, I thought that the ending was sort of abrupt. The big reveal doesn't come until about the 90% mark and it is a rather cliché scene. I was looking forward to seeing how the big reveal actually effected both the girls and their families, but we get to see very little of this. I think it would have been better to have the big reveal happen much sooner (like at about 50-60% through the novel) and then have the book really deal with the aftermath of Chaurisse and her mother finding out about her father's other family. Even the epilogue-ish scene at the end is very abrupt and it doesn't give us much of a sense of how the girls' lives have changed in the intervening years between the end of the last chapter and the epilogue.

There were things that I liked about this novel, but I also feel like there is just so much wasted potential here. This book could have been really great with a few tweaks here and there, but as it stands, it's just average which is why I'm giving it three stars.