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Elegies For The Brokenhearted (2010)

by Christie Hodgen(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

039306140X (ISBN13: 9780393061406)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: What was spectacular about this was how you learn about the narrator. Instead of personal reflection, etc., to guide you, Mary is shaped by the people she's honoring in the elegies. She almost has no personality, until you listen closer and realize that her character is as vibrant as the five people she's remembering. Time jumps back and forth a little, but not in a confusing way, and the beginning and latest point in Mary's life does bookend the stories she's telling, making it a cohesive progression. I loved this for its simplicity and power.
review 2: This is a beautifully written book that tells the life story of Mary Murphy through five elegies for people who left her. The elegies focused on an alcoholic, deadbeat uncle who takes on a parenting role for a... more brief time; an outcast classmate who shuns her at her point of need; a college roommate who seems entirely disconnected from everything; a pianist/composer whose life is on hold in a small town; and her selfish, uninvolved mother. Despite the tragedy in each of the stories, Mary seems to find gems of hope through these relationships. This is the beauty of the book. less

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