Myrtle of Willendorf by Rebecca O'Connell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Myrtle of Willendorf
Book Review: Butter Melting in a Muffin
Summary: 5 Stars
This slim book is full of funny remarks and delicious food descriptions, but it was the butter melting in a "Hop on Poppyseed" muffin that did it for me. Myrtle, the main character, loves to eat, and she spends a lot of time at her friend Sam's restaurant. He serves up all kinds of comfort food (with Dr. Seuss themes) at the same time he serves up warm friendship and emotional support. She can use the emotional support, too. Her roommate and the roommate's boyfriend are making life miserable for Myrtle with their inappropriate sexual activity. She's also dealing with the pain of a broken friendship from years before. She deals with all this with her sarcastic sense of humor, her artisitc ability, and lots of comfort food. Good, funny story.Book Review: Celebrating the Beauty in All Women
Summary: 5 Stars
Myrtle of Willendorf celebrates the diva in all women. Not everyone is a size 4. Big women can be beautiful. Over weight women have sensual sides to them just like thin women. I think the book does a nice job of letting its readers know that being comfortable in your skin is the best gift you can give yourself. Myrtle is herself. She has talents. She has feelings. She is more than the sum of her girth.Book Review: Couldn't put it down
Summary: 5 Stars
I couldn't put this book down! It is a very short book, so not being able to tear myself away wasn't a problem. It was just a really intense, really enjoyable reading afternoon. There is something about the main character - Myrtle - that made me want to keep reading. Her story (told in first person) is about how as an art student in college, she has an obnoxious roommate who is always trying to make Myrtle into something she's not. Myrtle misses her old best friend from high school, but they had a big fight thier senior year because they were accused of being lesbians. Meanwhile, some mysterious unexplained happenings make Myrtle think of her old friend and the mystical, magical things her friend taught her. It is all told in a funny, ironic way with lots of priceless details. For instance, Myrtle hangs out at a coffee shop that has a Dr. Seuss theme, and the owner of the coffee shop dispenses wise advice. I LOVED this book, and even though I read it in one afternoon months ago, I still think about it all the time.
Book Review: Deftly Constructed Miniature
Summary: 5 Stars
Myrtle is a beautifully drawn character study of a young woman struggling to find an identity despite the best efforts of her "friends" and her own low self image to influence her thinking. Myrtle's use of food to attempt to fill her emotional hunger is especially telling, as many women in similar situations can attest. Not a big book, but a painfully real one. A mature book for a mature teen or young adult who has similar concerns about weight, sexuality and love.Book Review: Myrtle is Mystical
Summary: 5 Stars
This highly appealing and unusual herione experiences life inthe harsh world of high school and college by rising through the ashesof superficiality to become replete in her own majesty and talent. Unconventional and plaqued by the pressures of conformity, Myrtle rejects the standards of the main stream body of youth as symbolized by a character named Jada, a tall willowy representative of teen beauty and copes with her own eating disorder and self hatred. The result is a highly complex and all too human young woman who is blessed with enormous talent and who finds herself in a far more interesting world once she accepts her life as it is, rather than as she would like it to be. Myrtle finds success in her own life through kind if offbeat friends one of whom helps her in providing a venue for her art show in which her work is proudly displayed. It is her choice of work that finally defines and completes her acceptance and pride in herself. "Myrtle" who closely identifies with the prehistoric stone figure of Venus of Willendorf, becomes for all of us who experienced the insecurity of youth and desire for acceptance, a heroine whose courage and self deprecating humor set a new standard for today's young women and sends a clear message of truth to those tortured young people who strive to become what they are not. Rather, "Myrtle" gives a much needed boost to the idea that self esteem and acceptance is every bit as appealing as the picture on the magazine cover so sought after by today's young women. Myrtle and her friends teach us a much needed lesson about life and our place in it. I have only one wish and that is to see more of Myrtle and where her life goes in the future. Myrtle of Willendorf will keep you reading until the last page is done and you will not soon forget this extrememly different and appealing "goddess". Ms. O'Connell has taken an important subject and brought it home with humor, pathos and compassion.
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