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Keeping Secrets
Two young cousins, Jenny O'Shea and Jade Ritchie, share a special bond that goes beyond family and friendship. When that bond is tested by abuse, the two girls come to learn the value of their friendship. They share a powerful, empowering, and emotional journey as they both fight to protect their childhood and their innocence. When an older cousin arrives, the darkness of his intentions quickly becomes clear, but only to the girls. To the outside world, he is a loving big brother and a protector, but the girls quickly learn that appearances can be deceiving. They know that, unless they can outwit him, they run the risk of becoming prisoners to his sinister plans. His cunning and perverse intentions are a constant threat that they are determined to fight off together. But just as they are about to launch their own defensive against him, they are separated. Once alone, each girl's life becomes indescribably more complicated and dangerous. And just when freedom is within sight, an even darker secret is revealed-one that will change their lives forever. Theirs is a story of resilience and the power of the human spirit.
236 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 2011
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 22, 2014
Keeping Secrets is the story of two girls named Jade and Jenny, who face abuse from nearly every man in their lives. The book spans from early childhood until the girls are grown and having their own children.
This book took me two months to read, and I was relieved to finally finish it. The story had great potential, but it came out quite muddled. I liked the beginning, but the book became more loathsome as the pages wore on. One thing that drove me crazy, and that increased a lot over the course of the book, was the abundance of pointless, miscellaneous events. Characters or events would get entire chapters of boring description, and then never be mentioned again. Most of them don't serve any purpose, for character development or for plot (wait, what plot?). Other things that should be important get scarcely a paragraph. It's almost as if the author said "oh, yes, I have to talk about this..." but didn't actually put any effort into that passage.
The writing itself is quite obnoxious, particularly the dialogue - people communicate by exchanging entire paragraphs one at a time. It was very unnatural. The author also did a lot of telling, not showing - I couldn't picture most of the characters and events that clearly, because there wasn't very much detail or imagery (with the exception of the farm). One other annoyance was that Jenny never seemed to mature. When she began to date, I was surprised, because I still pictured her as a little girl. Maybe because she was such a flat character. Really, all of the characters were pretty flat, and I didn't care about them very much.
Keeping Secrets' one saving grace is the nostalgic charm of the farm in the beginning. This was the only part of the novel I really enjoyed - the girls' childhood adventures.
The ending was meant to be a big reveal of Jade's secret, but I wasn't surprised in the least. Jade and Jenny had such sad, broken lives, and I wanted to really care and feel sorry for them. But they didn't feel real, so I wasn't really attached to them.
This book was frustrating to read because I really wanted to like it. It did have a few redeeming qualities, but was truly a mess. I do think that with a lot of work, it could be improved, and could become a stronger novel. However, what I read was absolutely not good.
Thank you to Goodreads and iUniverse.com for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
This book took me two months to read, and I was relieved to finally finish it. The story had great potential, but it came out quite muddled. I liked the beginning, but the book became more loathsome as the pages wore on. One thing that drove me crazy, and that increased a lot over the course of the book, was the abundance of pointless, miscellaneous events. Characters or events would get entire chapters of boring description, and then never be mentioned again. Most of them don't serve any purpose, for character development or for plot (wait, what plot?). Other things that should be important get scarcely a paragraph. It's almost as if the author said "oh, yes, I have to talk about this..." but didn't actually put any effort into that passage.
The writing itself is quite obnoxious, particularly the dialogue - people communicate by exchanging entire paragraphs one at a time. It was very unnatural. The author also did a lot of telling, not showing - I couldn't picture most of the characters and events that clearly, because there wasn't very much detail or imagery (with the exception of the farm). One other annoyance was that Jenny never seemed to mature. When she began to date, I was surprised, because I still pictured her as a little girl. Maybe because she was such a flat character. Really, all of the characters were pretty flat, and I didn't care about them very much.
Keeping Secrets' one saving grace is the nostalgic charm of the farm in the beginning. This was the only part of the novel I really enjoyed - the girls' childhood adventures.
The ending was meant to be a big reveal of Jade's secret, but I wasn't surprised in the least. Jade and Jenny had such sad, broken lives, and I wanted to really care and feel sorry for them. But they didn't feel real, so I wasn't really attached to them.
This book was frustrating to read because I really wanted to like it. It did have a few redeeming qualities, but was truly a mess. I do think that with a lot of work, it could be improved, and could become a stronger novel. However, what I read was absolutely not good.
Thank you to Goodreads and iUniverse.com for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
May 9, 2012
This novel was alright. Such a depressing topic, that it made it hard to read at times.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews