Be Specific About Books Toward The Used World
| ISBN: | 0743247787 (ISBN13: 9780743247788) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Indiana(United States) |
Haven Kimmel
Hardcover | Pages: 308 pages Rating: 3.63 | 1490 Users | 261 Reviews
Describe Containing Books The Used World
| Title | : | The Used World |
| Author | : | Haven Kimmel |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 308 pages |
| Published | : | September 18th 2007 by Free Press (first published August 28th 2007) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Novels. Contemporary. Humor |
Commentary In Pursuance Of Books The Used World
It was mid-December in Jonah, Indiana, a place where Fate can be decided by the weather, and a storm was gathering overhead.So Haven Kimmel, bestselling author of A Girl Named Zippy, prepares us to enter The Used World -- a world where big hearts are frequently broken and sometimes repaired; where the newfangled and the old-fashioned battle it out in daily encounters both large and small; where wondrous things unfold just beneath the surface of everyday life; and where the weather is certainly biblical and might just be prophetic.
Hazel Hunnicutt's Used World Emporium is a sprawling antique store that is "the station at the end of the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there." Hazel, the proprietor, is in her sixties, and it's a toss-up as to whether she's more attached to her mother or her cats. She's also increasingly attached to her two employees: Claudia Modjeski -- freakishly tall, forty-odd years old -- who might finally be undone by the extreme loneliness that's dogged her all of her life; and Rebekah Shook, pushing thirty, still living in her fervently religious father's home, and carrying the child of the man who recently broke her heart. The three women struggle -- separately and together, through relationships, religion, and work -- to find their place in this world. And it turns out that they are bound to each other not only by the past but also by the future, as not one but two babies enter their lives, turning their formerly used world brand-new again.
Astonishing for what it reveals about the human capacity for both grace and mischief, The Used World forms a loose trilogy with Kimmel's two previous novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising (Light and Swift). This is a book about all of America by way of a single midwestern town called Jonah, and the actual breathing histories going on as Indiana's stark landscape is transformed by dying small-town centers and proliferating big-box stores and SUVs. It's about generations of deception, anguish, and love, and the idiosyncratic ways spirituality plays out in individual lives. By turns wise and hilarious, tender and fierce, heartrending and inspiring, The Used World charts the many meanings of the place we call home.
Rating Containing Books The Used World
Ratings: 3.63 From 1490 Users | 261 ReviewsEvaluate Containing Books The Used World
Could have used the print version or audible for this. Used CD and difficult to re-listen.3.5 stars. I would've rounded up, but just when it was getting really good there was a jump six months into the future and it just got muddled and less enjoyable from then on.(view spoiler)[I was pleasantly surprised that 2 out of the 3 main characters were eventually revealed to be lesbians. I'm not entirely sure this is canon, but I like to think Rebekah was at least bi and raised her baby with Claudia (along with Oliver too, of course). (hide spoiler)]Also, on a random note... in one of the
Again I am blown away by the sheer brilliance of Kimmel's writing and insight into the human heart and condition.Perhaps the most likable of her loose trilogy and perhaps mostly because of nearly completely female cast, this story is unforgettable and paradigm-shifting.While there were several paragraphs I needed to read multiple times, and were sometimes even then didn't completely understand, I felt like this book, those sentences, those thoughts were a call for me to rise to the intellectual
To me, reading this book was a little like taking a risk, simply because I love Kimmel's Zippy memoirs and feared that this might lead to disappointment. Turns out it was, in fact, a huge departure from Zippy, but I loved it anyway. There are some fantastic observations (I loved the part about women plucking their eyebrows until looking like they were in a permanent state of shock), and a plot as eclectic as The Used World Emporium, where the three female characters work. Past and present weave
Most of the time I was reading this it bordered on two or three stars, but now that I'm finished I just can't give it more than one. I just didn't like it. I tried to like it. I tried to get into it. I just couldn't. I was disappointed. I love the other books by Kimmel that I've read, A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch. These are laugh-out-loud great reads that I'd recommend to everyone. I don't feel like all books need to be wrapped up in a nice, neat package by the end, but A
Another miraculous book by Kimmel. Again set in east central Indiana (probably Muncie), this is the story of 3 misfit women with pasts that haunt them. Like Kimmel's other books, it takes religion very seriously, with a Church of the Brethren pastor of a very small congregation (about 30 attend worship) who quotes Stanley Haurwas & Martin Buber in his sermons. (It's the same pastor who was the one of the two main characters in The Solace of Leaving Early.) But it takes on other big issues,
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