Title: The Kindness of Strangers
Author: Katrina Kittle
Publication: HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2006
Genre: Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 390
Introduction:
I joined a book club a few months ago. I thought this would get me back into reading (I just needed a little nudge). It has, although I've had to figure out the best times of day to read, so that it doesn't take me a full month to read one book. The Kindness of Strangers was the book the club was reading at the time I joined. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I am so glad that it was the book we chose.
Plot:
The Kindness of Strangers follows the time-span of about four months (the Summer and a bit of school time). During this time, a family take in a boy and they all must reflect on their situation and come to terms with accepting everything that has happened to them, knowing they must do this to move on. The family, a recent widow and her two boys, are friends with another family, a couple and their one boy. The two women are best friends, as are their pre-teen sons. Through a rolling chain of events, it comes to light that the couple is not who they say they are. Their son, now living with the widow's family, faces choices about how to move on from his past. The widow and her boys must figure out how to stabilize their own quickly disintegrating family. They all must "discover the power of love necessary to forgive and to heal."
Review:
Just from reading the back of the book, I had a basic idea of what atrocious thing possibly happened. When I opened the book, however, I was stunned by not how right I was, but the detail used to explain the situation. Good detail. This is a terribly under-talked about topic, and I will forever be grateful of Kittle to have scoured this out of our media sewers and made it comfortably readable. In my book club's meeting, we all agreed that each of us know at least one person who has gone through some version of the abuse talked about in the book.
I feel I must be very clear that this is not a grotesque book. The topic itself will most likely make you queasy, but, again, it is a good queasy. It is a topic that more people should read about, talk about.
Kittle obviously did her research. Though one should always check up on facts, I would venture to guess that Kittle's statements of facts in the book are at least relatively close to accurate. I would surmise that her point would not be the numbers, but to call attention to the problem at hand.
My only qualm was with the technicalities of the grammar. I, unfortunately, was one of those students who would correct grammatical mistakes in text books (while in high school, by college I had given up). This was actually the main reason I had a hard time getting 'in to' the book at first. I am not trying to judge the writer on this, as I feel that the publishers should have high enough standards to make sure the final cut is really free of errors. Otherwise, send it back. In saying that, I may take a look at another Kittle book to see if it is also rampant with errors.
(Please feel free to catch me on my errors as well! Esp. when I am proofing this quite late at night...)
I feel I must be very clear that this is not a grotesque book. The topic itself will most likely make you queasy, but, again, it is a good queasy. It is a topic that more people should read about, talk about.
Kittle obviously did her research. Though one should always check up on facts, I would venture to guess that Kittle's statements of facts in the book are at least relatively close to accurate. I would surmise that her point would not be the numbers, but to call attention to the problem at hand.
My only qualm was with the technicalities of the grammar. I, unfortunately, was one of those students who would correct grammatical mistakes in text books (while in high school, by college I had given up). This was actually the main reason I had a hard time getting 'in to' the book at first. I am not trying to judge the writer on this, as I feel that the publishers should have high enough standards to make sure the final cut is really free of errors. Otherwise, send it back. In saying that, I may take a look at another Kittle book to see if it is also rampant with errors.
(Please feel free to catch me on my errors as well! Esp. when I am proofing this quite late at night...)
Summary:
I loved this book (aside from the grammatical errors). On content alone, I highly suggest this as a great read. One should never shy from giving a new book a try. You never know what you may find. :-)
Where To Buy:
I purchased my copy from Amazon.
Walmart: about $10.00
Target: about $13.00
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