12.04.2010

Flower Children

Flower ChildrenDuring the Thankfully Reading Weekend {last weekend} I read a few books.  One of the books I read & finished was Flower Children by Maxine Swann.  I picked the book up at the warehouse sale- the cover and title pulled me in.  While it was beautifully written, it wasn't memorable.  Flower Children is about 4 siblings growing up on a small hippie farmstead, raised by intelligent ex-Harvard parents who were pulled into the idealistic hippie lifestyle.  Chapters {and sometimes paragraphs within those chapters} were written from various points of view, including the children's and the parents.  To be quite honest, it was confusing at times... it jumped around a lot.. different points of view, skipping chunks of years and different locations- all very quick and with little transitioning.  Maybe its just me, but I don't like when stories do that {unless it is some crazy out there sci-fi type}.  That is basically the whole novel- a few years in the children's lives and how they saw it. Their parents divorce and have lots of lovers, they visit family {Dad has large a crazy family who are living off of strange inventions.. Mom has a small family of her own mother, who doesn't approve of the hippie life}, they travel and meet their fathers old friend from Harvard, they constantly feel like they are dressed inappropriately, they get teased at school, they know too much and not enough at the same time and they pretty much just exist. To be frank- I didn't like it.  Like I said before, it was beautifully written- lyrically the story is dreamy.  Other than that, it was pretty boring.  I don't really even have anything else to say about it. 

write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow

2 comments:

  1. Jenna, email me your address and I will send the Renuzit coupon out to you on Monday. Staciele(at)netins(dot)net. Thanks!
    Stacie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I might like that one more than you did - I've always wondered who kids raised like that turn out.

    ReplyDelete