Wish You Well by David Baldacci Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Wish You Well
Book Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book truley is amazing! It is such a beautiful, heartwarming story and I would reccomend this book to anyone looking for an intriguing book with a great story to enjoy.
My father reads many many many books! I never read. I expressed to him that I would love to get into reading, however never get around to it. He has always told me about this book and how wonderful it is and that I should read it. I finally took him up on this offer and I am very glad that I did.
You will not regret reading this book!
Book Review: A Stunningly Beautiful Piece of Work by Baldacci.
Summary: 5 Stars
I was so impressed with this depression era book set in Virginia as seen through the eyes of young Lou Cardinal and her brother Oz that I listened to the audiobook twice. Without giving too much away, it deals with the children of a famous writer who must go to live on the Virginia mountains with their great grandmother Louisa Mae while their mother lies in a bedridden catatonic state.
I would love to see this story become deigned a classic, except it bears some striking resemblances to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird--even the outcome of the court case is similar, and the villain George Davis is just as ruthless. Though there is prejudice as one of the themes, the central idea is Baldacci's obvious disdain for the corruption big business can eke out on the working class and the beauty of mother nature. With some ugliness portrayed is also an abundance of beautifully written images of scenery, the heart and humor of adventurous, innocent children, and the comprehension of people who are generous with little and can love a sometimes difficult landscape. Get yourself a box of tissues, because this one is a heartwarming tearjerker you'll never forget.
Book Review: Hillbillies R Us
Summary: 2 Stars
Reactions to Wish You Well will depend, in large part, on the reader's tolerance level for "hillbilly" dialect. Page after page of sentences teeming with double negatives and "ain't this, cain't that" is not everyone's idea of a good read. Worse, Baldacci's characters are one-dimensional, straight out of central "mountain people" casting. The scenes suffer from a stunning lack of originality and depict situations that have been sentimentalized and "Waltonized" in many, many other works before Baldacci. For example, Lou and Oz's first day at the one-room schoolhouse starts off with the local boys taunting them for Yankees, and ends with Lou giving them a whollop--thus earning the instant respect and admiration of their tormentors. Ho hum. The book rarely rises above that kind of middle-school level. Book Review: Great Mountain Story
Summary: 5 Stars
I LOVED this story it was enriched with so many lessons, emotions, and detail that you felt like you were right there with Lous and Oz. I would recommend this story to any one!!!Book Review: A truly charming book
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved this book and I know that because I had tears more than once (not that that's a criterion, but it is for this sort of work).
Sadly, I could only give it three stars because the publisher was evidently too impecunious to afford a decent copy editor or one at all. The first error (and I admit that I may be incorrect about this one) is that yellow crocuses were gathered (who picks crocuses in the first place) and I think it was autumn. As I indicated, I may be incorrect here, but I didn't bother to look back. Moreover, the time frame wove in and out as if the US were not into WWII as the story went along.
Another error is that non-human female animals, not having cervices, do not have pain while delivering off-spring. Yes, they may die, but it's from exhaustion, not pain. Exhaustion has a pain all it's own, of course, but it's not PAIN.
Then there was Cotton Longfellow claiming Walt Whitman as his relative when it was already established that Longfellow (no surprise)was.
Where did the wild dogs come from? It would seem to me that they might have been around and about long before. That's a small thing, really.
There was another glitch which I do not recall (okay, I'm old).
Moving on, Amanda's recovering is not unheard of, but it's most often not a good idea to have "miracles" in novels (unless we're dealing with fantasy). Amanda's recovery would better have been left to non-fiction.
I did love this book and I admired Mr. Balducci for writing it and Warner Books for agreeing to publish it. Publishers do not like to have writers dip into anything other than their usual fare: That's because writers' fans don't want to buy anything the least bit unfamiliar, readers being what they are (craving safety).