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Publisher:
Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Inc |
Release
Date: 2002 |
ISBN:
1589392388 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Fiction / Chick Lit |
Reviewer:
Carolyn
Howard-Johnson |
Reviewer
Notes: Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of This is
the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories
Remembered. |
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Hey
Dorothy, You're Not in Kansas Anymore
By Karen
Mueller Bryson
After A Cyclone
Finding the Humor and Future in
Life's Disasters
I
was intrigued by the title of Karen Mueller Bryson's book, and who
wouldn't be? The English-speaking world has been mightily affected
by the metaphor of Oz. Hey Dorothy, You're Not in Kansas Anymore
does not disappoint.
A
young woman loses her father in a freak accident. She is one of
a family with enough peccadilloes among them to keep any reader
fascinated. She decides she will sleep her pain away, her mother
decides she will run away with a cult, and brother decides to bury
himself in his achievements and try to ignore the whole mess. The
pain in this family is palpable, but so is their zest for living.
Those who loved Bridget Jones's Diary may like this book even better.
It has the snap of the new genre called chick lit to which "Diary"
is a prominent member; like "Diary", it explores the pain
that twenty-something's often experience in a society that isn't
keen on letting them grow up.
What makes this novel better is that
Our Dear Dorothy is just more likeable than Bridget because she
is not quite so needy, quite so miserable, is just less of a cookie-cutter
character all around.
What
makes this novel move along so quickly is the author's background
as a playwright. The dialogue is quick and convincing. The grounding
is much like a theater production. The settings are sufficiently
presented but do not dominate. Mostly, the humor is so natural.
I laughed out loud three times in the first two chapters and chuckled
even more often. All in all, this book is a good lesson that the
absurd may be found in the most agonizing of situations and that
it works ever so well as a healer.
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