Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Ash Wednesday
Book Review: A Really Good Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Ash Wednesday, written by Ethan Hawke, is an amazing novel that captures the passion of love and marriage between a bright young couple. It's about a young sergeant in the military (James Heartsock) (a.k.a. Jimmy) and his beautiful pregnant girlfriend (Christy Walker) who travels from New York to Texas where Christy's family resides. Christy has decided to leave Albany and head home to Houston to prepare and settle for a new life with her future child regardless if Jimmy comes along on not. She gives Jimmy the chance to either come with her or stay behind with the military. Jimmy has to decide whether he prefers his position in the military or Christy who is pregnant. It's a time where he needs to make the biggest decision that could forever change his life. Finally, he makes the decision to choose his lover over his post, leaving the military behind. Everything was going really well until they got married in Ohio before reaching Texas. Shortly after their marriage, they encounter their most crucial time of life in New Orleans during their honeymoon in which they could lose their baby. The doctor tells them that the baby might be dead because the baby has no heartbeats, which should be quite clear at 20 weeks. Christy doesn't want to believe that the fact that her baby could be dead. Therefore they leave this hospital in search for a better hospital in Houston. On their way to Houston, a cop pulls them over for speeding and arrests Jimmy for AWOL from the military while Christy is taken to a hospital in Houston. In the end, Jimmy's actions result into a dishonorable discharge but fortunately Christy returns back to him with a smile on her face. After reading only a few pages from Ash Wednesday, I became interested in Ethan Hawke's style of writing because it'll throw surprises that you'll definitely like. His fascinating style of language was what caught my attention in the first place. His words show how realistic people would talk and interact with each other. I would recommend this remarkable novel written by this author who is also an actor for it shows how it deals with the reality of life. The story carries one into another world that involves passion, sex, youth pregnancy, marriage, family, and the start of parenthood. Through this book, I have learned to a great extent of the values of family and love. If you're someone who loves to read about romance and family, you'll completely find Ash Wednesday a novel to remember.
Book Review: A Really Good Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Ash Wednesday, written by Ethan Hawke, is an amazing novel that captures the passion of love and marriage between a bright young couple. It's about a young sergeant in the military (James Heartsock) (a.k.a. Jimmy) and his beautiful pregnant girlfriend (Christy Walker) who travels from New York to Texas where Christy's family resides. Christy has decided to leave Albany and head home to Houston to prepare and settle for a new life with her future child regardless if Jimmy comes along on not. She gives Jimmy the chance to either come with her or stay behind with the military. Jimmy has to decide whether he prefers his position in the military or Christy who is pregnant. It's a time where he needs to make the biggest decision that could forever change his life. Finally, he makes the decision to choose his lover over his post, leaving the military behind. Everything was going really well until they got married in Ohio before reaching Texas. Shortly after their marriage, they encounter their most crucial time of life in New Orleans during their honeymoon in which they could lose their baby. The doctor tells them that the baby might be dead because the baby has no heartbeats, which should be quite clear at 20 weeks. Christy doesn't want to believe that the fact that her baby could be dead. Therefore they leave this hospital in search for a better hospital in Houston. On their way to Houston, a cop pulls them over for speeding and arrests Jimmy for AWOL from the military while Christy is taken to a hospital in Houston. In the end, Jimmy's actions result into a dishonorable discharge but fortunately Christy returns back to him with a smile on her face. After reading only a few pages from Ash Wednesday, I became interested in Ethan Hawke's style of writing because it'll throw surprises that you'll definitely like. His fascinating style of language was what caught my attention in the first place. His words show how realistic people would talk and interact with each other. I would recommend this remarkable novel written by this author who is also an actor for it shows how it deals with the reality of life. The story carries one into another world that involves passion,..., youth pregnancy, marriage, family, and the start of parenthood. Through this book, I have learned to a great extent of the values of family and love. If you're someone who loves to read about romance and family, you'll completely find Ash Wednesday a novel to remember.
Book Review: Because love ain't always perfect...
Summary: 4 Stars
Jimmy is far from perfect, but he now knows that Christy, who he'd recently split up with, is perfect for him and that he's ready to commit to her.
What he doesn't know is that Christy is carrying Jimmy's baby, and that she's not going to let him back into her life that easily.
As they travel across America, Jimmy tries to show Christy that he loves her and how far he's willing to go for them to be a family.
Hawke seems to really care for his characters: he represents them honestly, but without being critical or judgmental of them, and that made the characters really come alive for me. All in all, a touching read.
Book Review: Close, but no cigar
Summary: 2 Stars
As I read this one I could not get over the feeling that I was fooled into reading it. Yes, there's a good story somewhere beneath all the whining, posturing and falseness, but I just couldn't find it--no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much I like Ethan as an actor. At times, the book was actually a pain to read. A specific example involves a grating, melodramatic scene in which one character places pictures into a bag. (It's just plain BAD!) Another problem is that too many adjectives are strung together, such that you are forced to choose between them, and also the adverbs "slightly" and "lightly."
Some people say that what makes acting great is also what makes writing great, but they're wrong. Good writing requires much more structure, time, thought and just plain intelligence (and you don't have to look good to be a good writer). It's not simply a matter of putting yourself in a character's frame of mind and seeing what you come up with, and if it is, you should at least be able to tell what to keep and what to throw away. As I read the dialogue (and tried to ignore it when he interrupted the speech with superflous character actions) I found myself wondering how much Mr. Hawke got paid to write this story about a blithering, directionless young couple. I identified with Christy, and could see her as a real person, a worthwhile character, but most of the time, Jimmy's actions and dialogue seemed incongrous and inane. I just couldn't understand him at all.
People considering buying this book should think about the fact that it only got published because of Mr. Hawke's pre-existing fame. (I can't see another good reason. After some research on the author, I discovered that he was only writing it to fill the space between movie gigs! Some serious author he is...) There are literally 100,000 people out there who want to have books published in the way that Mr. Hawke has, and half of them could have done a much better job (because they would have had to try harder, and possibly would have wanted to.) I felt like giving up on this more than once. By halfway through, I could see it was going nowhere, and would reach no fufilling conclusion. It is simply a collection of random philosophies on life--wistful and irrelevant to boot. Thank God I bought it second-hand, for 90% off the cover price.
Book Review: Ethan Hawke Strikes Gold
Summary: 5 Stars
Ethan Hawke writes another wonderful tale of Human emotion and its effects in Ash Wednesday. He presents us with Jimmy and Christy, two people who still have no idea what it is all about, and Hawke exploits their every emotion within his words. The plot is simple but amazing at the same. A simple road trip, the discover each other even though, their inner monlogues say other wise. Hawke has the great talent of weaving human emotions together and allowing the reader to enter the character's mind at a deep level. If you love The Hottest State, you'll fall deeper with Ash Wednesday.