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Crossing Stones (2009)

by Helen Frost(Favorite Author)

4.33 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0374316538 (ISBN13: 9780374316532)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

review 1: I am, sadly, not as amazed by this book as a lot of other reviewers were. It's a short, good read, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Muriel, Frank, Ollie, and Emma are all fascinating characters. I did love Muriel's character development, but I found myself losing interest in the story itself in the last 30 or so pages. It started to become repetitive and somewhat boring. I found myself wanting to skip the poems rather than wanting to read them. Do bear in mind that I'm not a fan of World War I stories in general. I will read them if I have to, but I don't usually enjoy them. This book does have beautiful language, however. The formatting of the poems constantly got me and there are some really fantastic lines. It's very geared toward feminism and voices thoughts gi... morerls still have. I loved those parts about it. Warnings: - war- violence- missing limbs- mild cursing- death- PTSD
review 2: This book was amazing. I just read Keesha's House, also by Helen Frost, prior to reading Crossing Stones, and, while I liked Keesha's House alright, I didn't love it like this book. I wasn't really expecting to like another book written in poetic form, but i picked up Crossing Stones and started to read it, nontheless. The poems in Crossing Stones are just so beautiful, with three different narrators: Muriel, Emma, and Ollie. Muriel's poems are free and unrestricted, and form zig-zagging shapes on the page. Muriel is eighteen-years old in 1918, during WWI, and, while she holds radical ideas for her time, including wanting women to have the vote and openly challenging the war, it is only through her experiences with the war, her grief, and her resolve, that she discovers her true independent spirit, but it is with her introduction to women suffragists that Muriel truly finds her calling, as she comes to the realization that she does not need to be married to be happy. Emma and Ollies poems are both shorter than Muriel's and shaped like stones. Ollie deals with his experiences as a soldier, and his feelings for Emma, whilst Emma deals with her grief for her brother, and her realization of her feelings for Ollie. This story is so surprisingly good, and the sadness and grief felt by the characters was so painfully real. Frank's death, so sudden and unexpected, caught me by surprise just as much as the narrators, and I was just as sad as them. Frost does an incredible job distinguishing the personalities, desires, and motivations of the narrators, and through the thoughts and emotions of Muriel, Emma, and Ollie, their feelings about war, marriage, the future, and family, I got a unique and beautifully written perspective of this time period. Excellent novel, I truly loved it. less

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