Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Book!, Mar 16 2008
Whale Song is the first book I have read by Canadian author Cheryl Kaye Tardif. But it certainly won't be my last! I loved this book! It was wonderfully easy to read and had such believable characters that your heart ached along with them throughout the story. A new life on the west coast of Canada bring adventures to young Sarah. I could easily relate to Sarah's character as a young girl growing up in Canada. The connection to the ocean and the theme of the whales throughout the book made a wonderful ebb and flow to the story. The feeling of loss in the book is profound which Tardif is able to convey through her perfect choice of words. While the story contains several losses, there is also a wonderful message to the book. By the time I had put the book down, I found myself examining some choices in my own life where forgiveness has been denied. This is a Canadian author who should be added to everyone's Author to Watch list! I can't wait to read another of Tardif's books!
|
|
|
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Compelling, Heartbreaking Story, Aug 26 2007
In the summer of 1977, eleven-year-old Sarah Richardson is filled with trepidation and resentment when her father's new job forces her to leave her home and best friend in Wyoming to relocate in the remote town of Bamfield on Vancouver Island. But these feelings fade when she sees her gorgeous new house overlooking the ocean and befriends an Indian (a term commonly used for First Nations people in 1977) girl named Goldie. Of course, her idyllic summer with her parents and Goldie doesn't last. Once school begins, Sarah endures long, painful lessons about bullying, racial hatred, and family tragedy.
Cheryl Kaye Tardif's WHALE SONG is an unusual mystery. Although the story opens with an adult Sarah reflecting back on the summer that changed her life, Tardif eases into young Sarah's point of view as the story unfolds, turning the book into a young adult novel. But then adult Sarah slides briefly back into the story with ominous foreshadowing about events she wished she'd seen coming.
The other unique aspect is that the mystery doesn't occur until two thirds into the book. Certainly, the reader feels tension building among main characters and a grim situation inevitably spiraling out of control. But death, a police investigation, and murder charge don't occur until the reader knows the Richardson family so well that we feel their anguish. Some mystery fans might loathe the pacing of events, yet it's important to understand that mystery is only one facet of this multi-layered story. Crime might not be center stage in WHALE SONG, however, it's essential to the story.
Cross-genre novels are hard to pigeonhole, and this one will be a challenge for librarians and booksellers. WHALE SONG is an elegantly written, heartbreaking blend of friendships lost and gained, tragedy, Nootka spirituality, death, guilt, punishment, and forgiveness. This is a lot to incorporate into one novel, but Tardif does it beautifully in a mere 199 pages. If you want something different in a mystery, WHALE SONG is a compelling story you won't forget any time soon.
|
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A powerful, moving family drama that spans the generations! Beautiful writing!, Jan 14 2008
The title of this book leaped out at me from its striking cover, but when I started reading, I was captivated by how meaningful the title was to this very moving story. Cheryl Kaye Tardif's words, scenes and characters flowed through the pages so smoothly I almost forgot I was reading. I felt as though I were in Canada with the characters.
This is a story about an eleven-year-old girl, Sarah Richardson, who moves with her family to Vancouver Island, Canada where her father, a biologist, has taken a new job studying killer whales. Sarah makes friends with a neighbor girl, Goldie Dixon, who is a Nootka Indian. Before Sarah moved there, a tragedy occurred in Goldie's family; it involved her older brother, and there is a mysterious tie-in to this novel's title through that occurrence.
Goldie's wise granddmother, Nana, steeped in Indian tradition, plays a major role in Sarah's life, and Goldie's entire family becomes friends with Sarah's family as the story unfolds. When Sarah's mother becomes ill, a boy who has a crush on Sarah gives her a lovely whale figurine which is another tie-in to the title.
What happened in Goldie's family before Sarah came to live there? How does Sarah lose her mother ... and then her father, in uniquely different ways? How does she reclaim them both ...in uniquely different ways? And how does Sarah lose her memory? Why can't she remember the events of the most tragic day in her life? And just how does a whale figure into the plot? Do people who are drowned truly come back as whales, as the Nootkas believe?
That's a long list of questions, I know, but this author answers them with such dexterity, she'll leave you breathless. And, finally, the question that begs to be answered: What IS a Whale Song and how does it help Sarah reclaim her mother?
To get the answers to those questions, you must read this intriguing, exciting book. It will tug at your heart strings, stirring your emotions like no other.
One doesn't simply read a Tardif story, one experiences it! Among the very few authors I've ever said that about is my all-time favorite Pat Conroy. Like him, Cheryl Kaye Tardif has a definite way with words.
This is not only a coming-of-age story, it's a love story, a mystery and a family drama in one clear, concise package. Though billed as women's fiction or general fiction, this novel will appeal to YA and all generations--just as "Harry Potter" does.
"Whale Song" is a bestseller in Canada and the US. It made both lists on Amazon shortly after it was released. I'm not surprised that a film producer is looking closely at this book. In the front of my copy, Tardif wrote: Dare to Dream, and Dream Big! I certainly hope her Big Dream comes true and this novel becomes a movie!
My only regret is that I didn't discover this author sooner. She has two other novels out, "Divine Intervention" and "The River." But she says she "holds this one close to her heart." Well, it's now close to my heart, too, as I'm sure it will be to yours. I look forward to reading those other two, but I can't wait to read the one she's currently working on; it's a nonfiction story about the tragic murder of her younger brother and his friends, The Porch Monkeys ... a story of the lost, the forgiven.
|
|
|
Most recent customer reviews
|
