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Meet Me in Time
The four children of Lisette and Ray passionately struggle to achieve success in artistic careers and find happiness in their personal lives.LISETTE AND RAY - The poet and the TV star. The soft sweet Frenchwoman and her English protector, both forever in love.GABY - The eldest daughter, the musician. Jealous and raging.DANA - The son, the writer. Successful at his craft, always seeking someone to fulfill his desires.COREY - The grandson. The man child who would grow up at fourteen and find love the soonest.GLENN - The artist, the little sister, tempest-tossed by all their crises, stumbling towards passion, looking for a real love of her own ...
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
1 person is currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Vale Allen
60 books40 followersCharlotte Vale-Allen was born in Toronto and lived in England from 1961 to 1964 where she worked as a television actress and singer. She returned to Toronto briefly, performing as a singer and in cabaret revues until she emigrated to the United States in 1966.
Shortly after her marriage to Walter Allen in 1970 she began writing and sold her first novel Love Life in 1974. Prior to this book's publication she contracted to do a series of paperback originals for Warner Books, with the result that in 1976 three of her books appeared in print.
Her autobiography, the acclaimed Daddy's Girl, was actually the first book she wrote but in 1971 it was deemed too controversial by the editors who read it. It wasn't until 1980, after she'd gained success as a novelist, that the groundbreaking book was finally published.
One of Canada's most successful novelists, with over seven million copies sold of her 30+ novels, Ms. Allen's books have been published in all English-speaking countries, in Braille, and have been translated into more than 20 languages.
In her writing she tries to deal with issues confronting women, being informative while at the same time offering a measure of optimism. "My strongest ability as a writer is to make women real, to take you inside their heads and let you know how they feel, and to make you care about them."
A film buff and an amateur photographer, Allen enjoys foreign travel. She finds cooking and needlework therapeutic, and is a compulsive player of computer Solitaire. The mother of an adult daughter, since 1970 she has made her home in Connecticut.
Shortly after her marriage to Walter Allen in 1970 she began writing and sold her first novel Love Life in 1974. Prior to this book's publication she contracted to do a series of paperback originals for Warner Books, with the result that in 1976 three of her books appeared in print.
Her autobiography, the acclaimed Daddy's Girl, was actually the first book she wrote but in 1971 it was deemed too controversial by the editors who read it. It wasn't until 1980, after she'd gained success as a novelist, that the groundbreaking book was finally published.
One of Canada's most successful novelists, with over seven million copies sold of her 30+ novels, Ms. Allen's books have been published in all English-speaking countries, in Braille, and have been translated into more than 20 languages.
In her writing she tries to deal with issues confronting women, being informative while at the same time offering a measure of optimism. "My strongest ability as a writer is to make women real, to take you inside their heads and let you know how they feel, and to make you care about them."
A film buff and an amateur photographer, Allen enjoys foreign travel. She finds cooking and needlework therapeutic, and is a compulsive player of computer Solitaire. The mother of an adult daughter, since 1970 she has made her home in Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 21, 2024
I think I’ll need some time to forget about this book. And I want to forget about this book.
It was not good, it was not bad, for me it was meh. Maybe because I’m not a fan of slice of life stories, because of the writing, because of the themes and the characters.
I dived in this book thinking nothing, and was quite bored by the beginning. I started to be interested after the first quarter to then be repulsed by the pedophilia being almost normalized, leaving me wondering if the author thought it is a good thing or if she wanted to denounce it. At the end, I had a hard time going through the last chapters because of the suicidal tendencies, idealizations and attempt. There were also too many sex scenes, at the beginning it was okay, I supported them but at the end I skipped most of them.
I had difficulties loving the characters and I wanted to scream at them most of the time.
I loved how the book portrayed homosexuality at first and how it criticized people criticizing homosexuality given the year the book was published. But, again, I ended disappointed. Homosexually was replaced by bisexuality, praising heterosexual relationships, using the usual “it’s because you didn’t find the good one yet”. I’m still trying to figure out if the book is criticizing homosexuality or not, if it was genuine when homosexuality was said as right or if it only was to mock homosexual relationships and people’s mindset. I was so disappointed in how the story made Dana shift as almost heterosexual, how the story made him in love with a woman and praising how better it was. I wish he would have remained homosexual, because the character was better like this.
Some heavy and important themes were discussed and I find that good, still nowadays it’s important to talk about women, sexual liberty, contraception, violences against women. That’s why I give this book 3 stars, because we still need to read about all this, but some things are unnecessary and made my reading experience awful, made me lost the purpose of the story, made me wonder what was the moral of the story.
At the end, everything went so fast. We went from Glenn’s depression and alcoholism to a happy ending in less than 2 pages, without conclusion, without moral. I stared at the book wondering if I really read all the pages, and I in fact did read all the pages.
Not a bad book overall, it has great and important themes, but sometimes poorly handled. Still was interesting to dive into family dynamics, relationships and hard reality of life not being always pink and joyful.
Trigger Warnings: physical abuse, toxic relationship, car accident, alcohol, sexual violence, suicide attempt, addiction, rape, self harm, sexual content, violence, vomit, medical content, adult/minor relationship, domestic abuse, pregnancy, eating disorder, infidelity, body horror, death, death of parent, suicidal thoughts, pedophilia, alcoholism, infertility, blood, emotional abuse, homophobia
It was not good, it was not bad, for me it was meh. Maybe because I’m not a fan of slice of life stories, because of the writing, because of the themes and the characters.
I dived in this book thinking nothing, and was quite bored by the beginning. I started to be interested after the first quarter to then be repulsed by the pedophilia being almost normalized, leaving me wondering if the author thought it is a good thing or if she wanted to denounce it. At the end, I had a hard time going through the last chapters because of the suicidal tendencies, idealizations and attempt. There were also too many sex scenes, at the beginning it was okay, I supported them but at the end I skipped most of them.
I had difficulties loving the characters and I wanted to scream at them most of the time.
I loved how the book portrayed homosexuality at first and how it criticized people criticizing homosexuality given the year the book was published. But, again, I ended disappointed. Homosexually was replaced by bisexuality, praising heterosexual relationships, using the usual “it’s because you didn’t find the good one yet”. I’m still trying to figure out if the book is criticizing homosexuality or not, if it was genuine when homosexuality was said as right or if it only was to mock homosexual relationships and people’s mindset. I was so disappointed in how the story made Dana shift as almost heterosexual, how the story made him in love with a woman and praising how better it was. I wish he would have remained homosexual, because the character was better like this.
Some heavy and important themes were discussed and I find that good, still nowadays it’s important to talk about women, sexual liberty, contraception, violences against women. That’s why I give this book 3 stars, because we still need to read about all this, but some things are unnecessary and made my reading experience awful, made me lost the purpose of the story, made me wonder what was the moral of the story.
At the end, everything went so fast. We went from Glenn’s depression and alcoholism to a happy ending in less than 2 pages, without conclusion, without moral. I stared at the book wondering if I really read all the pages, and I in fact did read all the pages.
Not a bad book overall, it has great and important themes, but sometimes poorly handled. Still was interesting to dive into family dynamics, relationships and hard reality of life not being always pink and joyful.
Trigger Warnings: physical abuse, toxic relationship, car accident, alcohol, sexual violence, suicide attempt, addiction, rape, self harm, sexual content, violence, vomit, medical content, adult/minor relationship, domestic abuse, pregnancy, eating disorder, infidelity, body horror, death, death of parent, suicidal thoughts, pedophilia, alcoholism, infertility, blood, emotional abuse, homophobia
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April 20, 2020
Not that great. Vale Allen is very frank about sexual matters, which is nice, and most of those views have aged well. Otherwise it's a fairly shallow romance book with a heavy emphasis on Oedipal and Electra complexes.
And honestly, there's a character named Bobby Brady. The book was published in 1978 and presumably distributed in America. How did no one catch that?
And honestly, there's a character named Bobby Brady. The book was published in 1978 and presumably distributed in America. How did no one catch that?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews