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Jim Glass #2
The Blue Star
Jim Glass has fallen in love with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
Seven years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious 10-year-old at the heart of Tony Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War II.
Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a favorite novel for readers nationwide, Tony Earley has fashioned another nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time—making it again even more real than our own day. This is a timeless and moving story of discovery, loss, and growing up, proving why Tony Earley's writing "radiates with a largeness of heart".
Seven years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious 10-year-old at the heart of Tony Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War II.
Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a favorite novel for readers nationwide, Tony Earley has fashioned another nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time—making it again even more real than our own day. This is a timeless and moving story of discovery, loss, and growing up, proving why Tony Earley's writing "radiates with a largeness of heart".
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
27 people are currently reading
661 people want to read
About the author
Tony Earley
27 books93 followersTony Earley (born 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, but grew up in North Carolina. His stories are often set in North Carolina.
Earley studied English at Warren Wilson College and after graduation in 1983, he spent four years as a reporter in North Carolina, first as a general assignment reporter for The Thermal Belt News Journal in Columbus, and then as sports editor and feature writer at The Daily Courier in Forest City. Later he attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he received an MFA in creative writing. He quickly found success writing short stories, first with smaller literary magazines, then with Harper's, which published two of his stories: "Charlotte" in 1992 and "The Prophet From Jupiter" in 1993. The latter story helped Harper's win a National Magazine Award for fiction in 1994.
In 1996, Earley's short stories earned him a place on Granta's list of the "20 Best Young American Novelists", and shortly after that announcement, The New Yorker featured him in an issue that focused on the best new novelists in America. He has twice been included in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. His writing style has been compared by critics to writers as distant as a young Ernest Hemingway and E. B. White. One of his favorite writers is Willa Cather.
Earley studied English at Warren Wilson College and after graduation in 1983, he spent four years as a reporter in North Carolina, first as a general assignment reporter for The Thermal Belt News Journal in Columbus, and then as sports editor and feature writer at The Daily Courier in Forest City. Later he attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he received an MFA in creative writing. He quickly found success writing short stories, first with smaller literary magazines, then with Harper's, which published two of his stories: "Charlotte" in 1992 and "The Prophet From Jupiter" in 1993. The latter story helped Harper's win a National Magazine Award for fiction in 1994.
In 1996, Earley's short stories earned him a place on Granta's list of the "20 Best Young American Novelists", and shortly after that announcement, The New Yorker featured him in an issue that focused on the best new novelists in America. He has twice been included in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. His writing style has been compared by critics to writers as distant as a young Ernest Hemingway and E. B. White. One of his favorite writers is Willa Cather.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 218 reviews
January 1, 2021
Another charming installment featuring Jim Glass and his small, North Carolina town.
June 29, 2024
Comparing The Blue Star to Jim the Boy, I think I like Jim the Boy better. I still think this book is very worth reading if you liked Jim the Boy. In this book, Jim is a high school senior who has fallen for the new girl at school. I didn't know going in that this would be a romance, but it was WAY more than romance. It is an exploration of how he feels about people different from himself and how we all end up putting our foot in our mouth on occasion. It is a "slice of life" of Jim and his friends living their senior year while the world is on the brink of WWII while living in a small town and not knowing how their lives are going to impacted while the world is changing.
The writing was nicely descriptive and you get such a sense of place while also feeling real....REAL young people, boys and girls, making good and bad decisions and what consequences come from their decisions as well as the decisions of the adults in their lives. Just as in Jim the Boy, Earley took me back to much of my childhood...riding on dirt roads, fishtailing as you come out of the turn onto the dirt road, fishing and just the general country and small town feel.
Just as in Jim the Boy, his three uncles and mother play a big part in guiding him in his decision making while allowing him to make his own mistakes. His uncles are hilarious as usual but one uncle, Zeno, plays such a great male role model for Jim. I loved the character growth in Jim and the friends in his town. I wish there were another book about Jim that continues his life. I can hope the author decides to continue.
The writing was nicely descriptive and you get such a sense of place while also feeling real....REAL young people, boys and girls, making good and bad decisions and what consequences come from their decisions as well as the decisions of the adults in their lives. Just as in Jim the Boy, Earley took me back to much of my childhood...riding on dirt roads, fishtailing as you come out of the turn onto the dirt road, fishing and just the general country and small town feel.
Just as in Jim the Boy, his three uncles and mother play a big part in guiding him in his decision making while allowing him to make his own mistakes. His uncles are hilarious as usual but one uncle, Zeno, plays such a great male role model for Jim. I loved the character growth in Jim and the friends in his town. I wish there were another book about Jim that continues his life. I can hope the author decides to continue.
December 18, 2013
In 2000, Tony Earley published a delicate, daringly uneventful novel called Jim the Boy. His short stories in Harper's and the New Yorker had already attracted enthusiastic praise, but this first novel about a sensitive 10-year-old in a small North Carolina town inspired ferocious devotion. I thought it was one of the best books of the year; I tried to read chapters to my family but kept getting too choked up. Newspapers ran adulatory author profiles of the modest Vanderbilt professor, and there was talk about the advent of a new classic.
At the time, I remember consulting with several reviewers around the country about how to categorize Jim the Boy. The problem concerned us because we cared so much. Was it a YA book? The juvenile jacket cover -- retained, unfortunately, for this sequel -- seemed aimed at middle-schoolers, but we worried about scaring off adult readers with that label, and we suspected it was too slow for teens anyhow (no rape, school shooting or bone cancer -- the unholy trinity of YA lit).
We've waited a long time for a sequel to that story, and during those eight years, Jim the boy has grown into Jim the young man, the sort of person you'd expect from the first novel. He's decent and contemplative, concerned about others' feelings and his own shortcomings, suspended awkwardly between adolescence and adulthood.
The key to Jim is that he's an ordinary teenager who's endowed with an extraordinary consciousness of the ineffable sadness and beauty of life. In fact, that point gets laid on a bit thick this time around. He can seem like some undiscovered, rural superhero: Sensitive Teen. Despite the strict emotional code of high school, he feels "tempted to weep with some mysterious, nostalgic joy. The warm sunlight on his face seemed to remind him of something -- but he couldn't explain what -- and some vague but pleasant longing filled his chest." As poignant as these moments are, a character who feels too many ineffable things can eventually excite our effable distrust.
It's October of 1941, and though war is raging in Europe and Asia, it's still possible for Americans to pretend they might sit out the conflict. As new seniors, Jim and his buddies "had ruled Aliceville School for less than a month," Earley writes, "but now held this high ground more or less comfortably. . . . He and his friends were it." Their reign, however, is pretty benign. These are the kind of guys who, when provoked, pop off with language like this: "Leave a boy alone, for gosh sakes, why don't you?" Gearing up for a hot weekend, one of them claims, "Nothing makes a girl go crazy like square dancing." Opie could rumble with these ruffians.
Most of the story concerns Jim's forbidden attraction to a part-Cherokee girl named Chrissie, whose father is on the lam. She lives up the mountain with her mother and grandparents in a state of degrading servitude to a wealthy apple farmer. Chrissie already has a boyfriend, but he's off in the Navy; for that reason, lusting after her -- even by Jim's chaste standards -- feels adulterous and vaguely unpatriotic. Nonetheless, sitting behind her in history class, Jim studies her hair "with a scholar's single-minded intensity. . . . It became a warm, rich space into which it suddenly seemed possible to fall and become lost."
Adolescent romance is a charming, if well-worn subject, and Earley handles it here in a charming, if well-worn way. Driving alone in his car, after an argument with a friend, Jim comes face to face with his new ardor: "Something warm inflated and rose inside his chest, replacing in a single moment his ill temper with a growing elation. 'I love Chrissie Steppe,' he said out loud, realizing as he did so that the words were carrying him over some momentous boundary he had never known existed. Jim didn't know in what strange country this unexpected crossing landed him, or what dangers faced him, only that he found the vistas glorious to consider."
The object of his affection, though, considers him too naive, too optimistic and too privileged to take seriously. Jim and Chrissie have a few impromptu, adorable dates, but she won't accept his declarations. "I think you're a very nice boy," she tells him, "but I also think you've never learned you don't get to have everything you want." Jim lost his father a week before he was born, but he's been raised by his mother and her three brothers amid a wealth of affection and material support that has carried them through the Depression in far better condition than many of their neighbors. After visiting Chrissie's cabin in which "the walls were sealed with newspapers and pieces of cardboard," Jim begins to consider the pernicious effects of poverty and the severely cramped dimensions of others' lives.
The novel builds slowly to these more serious themes -- probably too slowly. Although Jim the Boy walked the line between banality and profundity with exquisite sensitivity, here the balance is not so well executed. Many of these chapters are warm and graceful but not sufficiently essential, and the writing isn't note-perfect enough to sustain the lack of import. Ivan Doig pulled off this sort of pastoral childhood a couple of years ago in a lovely Montana novel called The Whistling Season, but The Blue Star too often grows slack, too enamored with Jim's precious epiphanies.
Fortunately, as the novel nears its conclusion, these merely nostalgic scenes begin to acquire real emotional depth. The bubble of Jim's pleasant adolescence pops, and he must confront some life-shattering events -- pain his mother and uncles have effectively shielded him from. "The attendant beauty and sadness of the world suddenly seemed to him available for pondering in a way they never had before," Earley writes. "He felt as though he had spent his life until this evening poised over an exam, waiting for the teacher to say, 'Begin.' Now he had begun."
These late chapters are as good as anything Earley has ever written -- unashamedly sweet and pure and sad -- but I'm worried that only patient readers will hang on to reap these rewards. That would be too bad because by the end I was enthralled again, and the novel left me eager for the story of Jim's adventures in World War II.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
At the time, I remember consulting with several reviewers around the country about how to categorize Jim the Boy. The problem concerned us because we cared so much. Was it a YA book? The juvenile jacket cover -- retained, unfortunately, for this sequel -- seemed aimed at middle-schoolers, but we worried about scaring off adult readers with that label, and we suspected it was too slow for teens anyhow (no rape, school shooting or bone cancer -- the unholy trinity of YA lit).
We've waited a long time for a sequel to that story, and during those eight years, Jim the boy has grown into Jim the young man, the sort of person you'd expect from the first novel. He's decent and contemplative, concerned about others' feelings and his own shortcomings, suspended awkwardly between adolescence and adulthood.
The key to Jim is that he's an ordinary teenager who's endowed with an extraordinary consciousness of the ineffable sadness and beauty of life. In fact, that point gets laid on a bit thick this time around. He can seem like some undiscovered, rural superhero: Sensitive Teen. Despite the strict emotional code of high school, he feels "tempted to weep with some mysterious, nostalgic joy. The warm sunlight on his face seemed to remind him of something -- but he couldn't explain what -- and some vague but pleasant longing filled his chest." As poignant as these moments are, a character who feels too many ineffable things can eventually excite our effable distrust.
It's October of 1941, and though war is raging in Europe and Asia, it's still possible for Americans to pretend they might sit out the conflict. As new seniors, Jim and his buddies "had ruled Aliceville School for less than a month," Earley writes, "but now held this high ground more or less comfortably. . . . He and his friends were it." Their reign, however, is pretty benign. These are the kind of guys who, when provoked, pop off with language like this: "Leave a boy alone, for gosh sakes, why don't you?" Gearing up for a hot weekend, one of them claims, "Nothing makes a girl go crazy like square dancing." Opie could rumble with these ruffians.
Most of the story concerns Jim's forbidden attraction to a part-Cherokee girl named Chrissie, whose father is on the lam. She lives up the mountain with her mother and grandparents in a state of degrading servitude to a wealthy apple farmer. Chrissie already has a boyfriend, but he's off in the Navy; for that reason, lusting after her -- even by Jim's chaste standards -- feels adulterous and vaguely unpatriotic. Nonetheless, sitting behind her in history class, Jim studies her hair "with a scholar's single-minded intensity. . . . It became a warm, rich space into which it suddenly seemed possible to fall and become lost."
Adolescent romance is a charming, if well-worn subject, and Earley handles it here in a charming, if well-worn way. Driving alone in his car, after an argument with a friend, Jim comes face to face with his new ardor: "Something warm inflated and rose inside his chest, replacing in a single moment his ill temper with a growing elation. 'I love Chrissie Steppe,' he said out loud, realizing as he did so that the words were carrying him over some momentous boundary he had never known existed. Jim didn't know in what strange country this unexpected crossing landed him, or what dangers faced him, only that he found the vistas glorious to consider."
The object of his affection, though, considers him too naive, too optimistic and too privileged to take seriously. Jim and Chrissie have a few impromptu, adorable dates, but she won't accept his declarations. "I think you're a very nice boy," she tells him, "but I also think you've never learned you don't get to have everything you want." Jim lost his father a week before he was born, but he's been raised by his mother and her three brothers amid a wealth of affection and material support that has carried them through the Depression in far better condition than many of their neighbors. After visiting Chrissie's cabin in which "the walls were sealed with newspapers and pieces of cardboard," Jim begins to consider the pernicious effects of poverty and the severely cramped dimensions of others' lives.
The novel builds slowly to these more serious themes -- probably too slowly. Although Jim the Boy walked the line between banality and profundity with exquisite sensitivity, here the balance is not so well executed. Many of these chapters are warm and graceful but not sufficiently essential, and the writing isn't note-perfect enough to sustain the lack of import. Ivan Doig pulled off this sort of pastoral childhood a couple of years ago in a lovely Montana novel called The Whistling Season, but The Blue Star too often grows slack, too enamored with Jim's precious epiphanies.
Fortunately, as the novel nears its conclusion, these merely nostalgic scenes begin to acquire real emotional depth. The bubble of Jim's pleasant adolescence pops, and he must confront some life-shattering events -- pain his mother and uncles have effectively shielded him from. "The attendant beauty and sadness of the world suddenly seemed to him available for pondering in a way they never had before," Earley writes. "He felt as though he had spent his life until this evening poised over an exam, waiting for the teacher to say, 'Begin.' Now he had begun."
These late chapters are as good as anything Earley has ever written -- unashamedly sweet and pure and sad -- but I'm worried that only patient readers will hang on to reap these rewards. That would be too bad because by the end I was enthralled again, and the novel left me eager for the story of Jim's adventures in World War II.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
July 8, 2023
A very different tone than Jim the Boy (one of my favourite reads of the year so far), but once I realized how brilliantly he was capturing the angst and longing for clear direction that is the essence of adolescence, rather than the innocence and wonder of boyhood, I was on board! The writing is as evocative and lyrical as ever, and he captures the uncertainty of being a teenager in a world that’s been plunged into war in an achingly real way. There’s too much narrative action for this to truly be a stream of consciousness novel, but the acute psychological realism is astonishing. Just as with Jim the Boy, by the time I reached the last page the tears were streaming down my face. A wonderful read!
September 24, 2021
The author, Tony Earley, lists Willa Cather as his favorite writer, and her influence really shows. His two Jim Glass novels are such enjoyable reads.
4.5 Stars
4.5 Stars
May 16, 2008
In his essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," David Foster Wallace argues that irony, as a literary strategy, has lost the subversive power it once had to refresh our sense of life's possibilities in the face of a bland commercial mass culture. Irony has lost its power, according to Wallace, because it has been co-opted by that very same mass culture that experimental fiction writers like Barthelme and DeLillo used to use irony to attack. Wallace goes on to speculate that in the future, groundbreaking writers may adopt an aesthetic of earnestness, rejecting irony and even risking being called sentimental.
Tony Earley seems to be precisely the writer Wallace was predicting. In his first novel, Jim the Boy, and its new sequel, The Blue Star, Earley uses straightforward storytelling techniques to narrate episodes in the life of Jim Glass, a young man growing up in tiny Aliceville, North Carolina, under the watchful, loving guidance of his mother and three uncles. In the first book, Jim is ten. In this one, Jim is a senior in high school, falling in love, facing the prospect of war, and gradually awakening to the adult world and to his own naivete.
I once heard the first book described as a children's book written for adults. This one could be described in the same way--it explores complex issues of identity, initiation, race and class with a deceptively simple style. I thought it was great. I hope and expect that there's more to come.
Tony Earley seems to be precisely the writer Wallace was predicting. In his first novel, Jim the Boy, and its new sequel, The Blue Star, Earley uses straightforward storytelling techniques to narrate episodes in the life of Jim Glass, a young man growing up in tiny Aliceville, North Carolina, under the watchful, loving guidance of his mother and three uncles. In the first book, Jim is ten. In this one, Jim is a senior in high school, falling in love, facing the prospect of war, and gradually awakening to the adult world and to his own naivete.
I once heard the first book described as a children's book written for adults. This one could be described in the same way--it explores complex issues of identity, initiation, race and class with a deceptively simple style. I thought it was great. I hope and expect that there's more to come.
August 26, 2008
Jim the Boy was a true delight, a wonderfully understated book that I treasure years after reading it. News of a sequel made me both excited and nervous. Excited because of how much I enjoyed Jim; nervous because of losing the simplicity of the earlier book. The Blue Star retains a great deal of the charm of Aliceville, North Carolina from the original novel. At the same time, the outside world forces its way into his life as he approaches adulthood. The book is set in 1941. The fact that Jim is 17 and a high-school senior lends an ominous air to its story of young love and heartbreak. Jim grows up and we the readers cannot stop it anymore than we could with a real child. While the subject matter keeps it from being as comforting as the original, Earley's ability to depict his characters with deceptive simplicity still works well. I expect further sequels about Jim at different points in his life and I look forward to them.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : The Blue Star - Nevisande : Tony Earley - ISBN : 316199079 - ISBN13 : 9780316199070 - Dar 304 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2008
February 27, 2010
ARC from Regal
Funny thing about me and reading, When books are part of a series, I have to read them one right after the other. I don't like to squeeze other books in between them, unless of course they are already 12 novels long and I've only just discovered them (then it becomes a bit like chocolate - tastes good for the first 3 or 4 pcs, then just gets to be sickening and depressing)... OR they are still being released, in which case, I have no choice but fill the time from one release date to the other with books from my to-be-read pile (Of which there are currently over 200!!)
This book came as a package deal along with "Jim the Boy" (see my review here) and "Beat the Reaper" (next up) from Regal Literary, and thank goodness, because it saved me the potentially life threatening trip out into the Snow Storm Of The Century this weekend to purchase it.
I have been flying through my to-be-read pile this week, and a very large part of that is due to the fact that the books I have received for review have been quite good, and seem to demand most of my free time.
For instance: I woke this morning, let the puppy out for his morning walk, and plopped my butt on the couch to start reading "The Blue Star" and squeeze in a few pages before the boys crawled out of bed looking for breakfast. Still set in North Carolina, I find Jim - all grown up in his senior year of high school - still acting like a silly boy and hanging on the front steps of the school with his buddies.
After breakfast, I slide back onto the couch to find that Jim is in love with a beautiful girl who lives up on the mountian. He slides his desk up against the back of her chair and secretly plays with her hair as it covers the pages of his textbook in history class. Poor Jim, though... it appears that the one he pines for belongs to another, who is currently on a boat in an ocean fighting in WWII. Ooohh rats, the boys want lunch now.
Once the boys' tummys are full again, it's back to the couch and the book to find out that Jim's Uncle Zeno had almost married the mother of the girl he is in love with. Not to mention that Jim himself appears to be in some sort of tangle with Norma, a girl he once dated, that he broke it off with, who still carries a torch for him. Damn, laundry is piling up. Let me get a load going.
Back to the couch (which now seems to have this funny butt-shaped indent in it) and Jim, who confesses his love to the girl he can't have, who warns him off but not before geting flirty and hiding in the fog on the mountian and allowing Jim to ask her some personal questions. After this, she ignores him for awhile and nearly breaks his heart by showing up at the school dance with another boy (NOT the boy she is supposedly dating who is still serving in the war)! Shoot, I suppose I should go take a shower, huh?
Finally out of my pajamas and on the home stretch, there is a body in a coffin that causes Jim alot of guilt, a fourteen year old girl that got knocked up by Jim's friend at the dance, a heartfelt conversation between Jim and the mother of his crush, and a signature on an enrollment form for the war.
It seems like it was only yesterday that I was reading about the little boy Jim and all the mischief and mayhem and mean thoughts...Oh wait, haha! That was only yesterday!
All kidding, and soap-opera drama, aside, Earley does a wonderful job helping Jim the Boy grow into Jim the Man. The progression is a painfully natural; the situations he faces and the choices he makes all help to take Jim along the path to manhood.
At one point, towards the end of the novel, Jim jokes to himself that he must be the worlds worst adult, giving you a pretty raw peek into the mind of this man who can't see how far he has come, and how much he has grown. Always wanting to do the right things, but not always capable of it. It's part of being human, part of growing up and learning to deal. It's just normal.
It was great to revisit little Jim, and I look forward to meeting him again, perhaps as an older, and wiser man in future novels, should Tony Earley so choose.
Funny thing about me and reading, When books are part of a series, I have to read them one right after the other. I don't like to squeeze other books in between them, unless of course they are already 12 novels long and I've only just discovered them (then it becomes a bit like chocolate - tastes good for the first 3 or 4 pcs, then just gets to be sickening and depressing)... OR they are still being released, in which case, I have no choice but fill the time from one release date to the other with books from my to-be-read pile (Of which there are currently over 200!!)
This book came as a package deal along with "Jim the Boy" (see my review here) and "Beat the Reaper" (next up) from Regal Literary, and thank goodness, because it saved me the potentially life threatening trip out into the Snow Storm Of The Century this weekend to purchase it.
I have been flying through my to-be-read pile this week, and a very large part of that is due to the fact that the books I have received for review have been quite good, and seem to demand most of my free time.
For instance: I woke this morning, let the puppy out for his morning walk, and plopped my butt on the couch to start reading "The Blue Star" and squeeze in a few pages before the boys crawled out of bed looking for breakfast. Still set in North Carolina, I find Jim - all grown up in his senior year of high school - still acting like a silly boy and hanging on the front steps of the school with his buddies.
After breakfast, I slide back onto the couch to find that Jim is in love with a beautiful girl who lives up on the mountian. He slides his desk up against the back of her chair and secretly plays with her hair as it covers the pages of his textbook in history class. Poor Jim, though... it appears that the one he pines for belongs to another, who is currently on a boat in an ocean fighting in WWII. Ooohh rats, the boys want lunch now.
Once the boys' tummys are full again, it's back to the couch and the book to find out that Jim's Uncle Zeno had almost married the mother of the girl he is in love with. Not to mention that Jim himself appears to be in some sort of tangle with Norma, a girl he once dated, that he broke it off with, who still carries a torch for him. Damn, laundry is piling up. Let me get a load going.
Back to the couch (which now seems to have this funny butt-shaped indent in it) and Jim, who confesses his love to the girl he can't have, who warns him off but not before geting flirty and hiding in the fog on the mountian and allowing Jim to ask her some personal questions. After this, she ignores him for awhile and nearly breaks his heart by showing up at the school dance with another boy (NOT the boy she is supposedly dating who is still serving in the war)! Shoot, I suppose I should go take a shower, huh?
Finally out of my pajamas and on the home stretch, there is a body in a coffin that causes Jim alot of guilt, a fourteen year old girl that got knocked up by Jim's friend at the dance, a heartfelt conversation between Jim and the mother of his crush, and a signature on an enrollment form for the war.
It seems like it was only yesterday that I was reading about the little boy Jim and all the mischief and mayhem and mean thoughts...Oh wait, haha! That was only yesterday!
All kidding, and soap-opera drama, aside, Earley does a wonderful job helping Jim the Boy grow into Jim the Man. The progression is a painfully natural; the situations he faces and the choices he makes all help to take Jim along the path to manhood.
At one point, towards the end of the novel, Jim jokes to himself that he must be the worlds worst adult, giving you a pretty raw peek into the mind of this man who can't see how far he has come, and how much he has grown. Always wanting to do the right things, but not always capable of it. It's part of being human, part of growing up and learning to deal. It's just normal.
It was great to revisit little Jim, and I look forward to meeting him again, perhaps as an older, and wiser man in future novels, should Tony Earley so choose.
February 12, 2016
The Blue Star is best described as "a children's book for adults" which tells the story of a high school senior from rural North Carolina in between 1941 and 1942. I liked it, the story was sweet. There wasn't a tremendous amount of depth to the story though beyond the story itself. The style reminded me of books like the Plainsong series, Brooklyn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Rules of Civility. They are all very good books that are true to the slice of life they portray in their normalness and subtlety. WW2 hangs in the background of this story (much like the blue star flags in the windows of families with loved ones at war) never the central theme so much as it is a black cloud that casts a shadow on the book throughout.
February 6, 2010
Tony Earley creates timeless stories in the early to mid 20th century that captures the cadences of life in a palpable way that isn't sappy or nostalgic. The Blue Star covers the senior year of Jim Glass on the eve of WWII in a small town located in rural NC. I found the clear, unadorned, succinct prose-style a welcomed change to the often overly self-conscious and pretentious writing that most post-modern authors affect. His style struck just the right tone and timber for a story that centers around a rural community just emerging from the Great Depression. Although a simple and straightforward plot, the author is thoughtful and deceptively subtle. I have a lot of respect for the author who creates a realistic, heart-wrenching love story that involves teenagers. My admiration grew when I finished the book and realized I was satisfied with the ending though it wasn't predictable, depressing, or sappy. I can't figure out why this book hasn't received wider popularity.
September 29, 2009
I am so glad I picked this up in the airport in NYC. Now I have to read "Jim the Boy" the
first in this series. It is a coming of age love story. The writing is
great but very accessible. I read the entire book on my flight back home.
My mom would have loved this one as historical
fiction was a favorite of hers...
first in this series. It is a coming of age love story. The writing is
great but very accessible. I read the entire book on my flight back home.
My mom would have loved this one as historical
fiction was a favorite of hers...
December 30, 2009
Another winner of a story by Earley. I feel like I am listening to a story being told around a pot bellied stove when I read his books.
April 18, 2023
RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “A WORLD WAR II SMALL TOWN “COMING-OF-AGE” LOVE STORY.”
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This wonderfully touching story takes place in a small rural town in North Carolina in the months leading up to World War II. The protagonist is Jim Glass a high school senior who lives with his widowed Mother. “THE UNCLES”, as his Mother’s brothers Zeno, Coran and Al are affectionately referred to, provide the unspoken Fatherly duties that a young boy like Jim would so desperately need with the absence of his Father. “THE UNCLES” have houses right next door. Because Jim and his friends were now seniors “they had earned the “right” to stand on the small landing at the top of the school steps, squarely in front of the red double doors. Every boy or girl had to go around them to get inside.” From this lofty perch Jim could see all the school buses that arrived each morning and watch all the students get off. It is here where he saw and fell in love with Christine (Chrissie) Steppe. Chrissie came from the mountains to school and rumor had it that she was half Cherokee Indian, which was not looked upon too kindly in 1941 America. It had also been stated by some that Chrissie was Bucky Bucklaw’s girlfriend. Bucky was a former student that Jim had played on the same baseball team with, but was now in the Navy. The heart of this tale revolves around the young unrequited love that Jim must carry around inside of him. He wonders how it would look if he made a move on a serviceman’s girl while he was off to war. When Jim tries to share even the remotest interest in Chrissie with a friend or member of his family, there’s always a comment about her probably not being “white” or a comment about her absent Father “Injun Joe”.
One day Chrissie is sick in school and Jim being one of the few people with a car offers to drive her to her mountain home. The author weaves a beautifully intricate scenario where Jim finds out that the term “Bucky’s girlfriend” may be more a matter of survival for Chrissie’s family than true romance. The reader feels the sadness and helplessness in Jim’s romantic anguish, as he had broke up with his former girlfriend Norma Harris, who wouldn’t let him kiss her enough, but who still loves him, and his burgeoning love for Chrissie who will not let him near her heart. Making matters more uncomfortable is the fact that Norma has remained very close to Jim’s mother and meets with her every week to work on a quilt, and makes Jim walk her to their house. The author’s writing is at times like intelligent poetry as in the case of Jims thoughts: “Jim could not understand how he could have loved Norma so much then and feel so differently now. His head seemed filled with memories belonging to another person, and he wished he could give them back.” Another example: “He felt himself smile so broadly, so ridiculously, that he would not have been surprised had sunshine poured out of his mouth.”
This story is written so eloquently, yet so simply, that I recommend this book for teenagers and adults. It is a realistic coming of age story that combines the beautiful painful pangs of love all teenagers and adults have felt some time during their lives; and the lucky ones, are the ones that never forgot the combined feeling of emptiness and loneliness, mixed with the sweet delicious euphoria of hope, that the object of your secret infatuation perhaps feels or will feel the way you do!
All of this is presented with the ominous backdrop of the beginning of World War II. As the saying goes: “Always leave them wanting more”, and this splendid story accomplishes just that. There is definitely a need for a sequel, and I will be first in line to buy it!
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This wonderfully touching story takes place in a small rural town in North Carolina in the months leading up to World War II. The protagonist is Jim Glass a high school senior who lives with his widowed Mother. “THE UNCLES”, as his Mother’s brothers Zeno, Coran and Al are affectionately referred to, provide the unspoken Fatherly duties that a young boy like Jim would so desperately need with the absence of his Father. “THE UNCLES” have houses right next door. Because Jim and his friends were now seniors “they had earned the “right” to stand on the small landing at the top of the school steps, squarely in front of the red double doors. Every boy or girl had to go around them to get inside.” From this lofty perch Jim could see all the school buses that arrived each morning and watch all the students get off. It is here where he saw and fell in love with Christine (Chrissie) Steppe. Chrissie came from the mountains to school and rumor had it that she was half Cherokee Indian, which was not looked upon too kindly in 1941 America. It had also been stated by some that Chrissie was Bucky Bucklaw’s girlfriend. Bucky was a former student that Jim had played on the same baseball team with, but was now in the Navy. The heart of this tale revolves around the young unrequited love that Jim must carry around inside of him. He wonders how it would look if he made a move on a serviceman’s girl while he was off to war. When Jim tries to share even the remotest interest in Chrissie with a friend or member of his family, there’s always a comment about her probably not being “white” or a comment about her absent Father “Injun Joe”.
One day Chrissie is sick in school and Jim being one of the few people with a car offers to drive her to her mountain home. The author weaves a beautifully intricate scenario where Jim finds out that the term “Bucky’s girlfriend” may be more a matter of survival for Chrissie’s family than true romance. The reader feels the sadness and helplessness in Jim’s romantic anguish, as he had broke up with his former girlfriend Norma Harris, who wouldn’t let him kiss her enough, but who still loves him, and his burgeoning love for Chrissie who will not let him near her heart. Making matters more uncomfortable is the fact that Norma has remained very close to Jim’s mother and meets with her every week to work on a quilt, and makes Jim walk her to their house. The author’s writing is at times like intelligent poetry as in the case of Jims thoughts: “Jim could not understand how he could have loved Norma so much then and feel so differently now. His head seemed filled with memories belonging to another person, and he wished he could give them back.” Another example: “He felt himself smile so broadly, so ridiculously, that he would not have been surprised had sunshine poured out of his mouth.”
This story is written so eloquently, yet so simply, that I recommend this book for teenagers and adults. It is a realistic coming of age story that combines the beautiful painful pangs of love all teenagers and adults have felt some time during their lives; and the lucky ones, are the ones that never forgot the combined feeling of emptiness and loneliness, mixed with the sweet delicious euphoria of hope, that the object of your secret infatuation perhaps feels or will feel the way you do!
All of this is presented with the ominous backdrop of the beginning of World War II. As the saying goes: “Always leave them wanting more”, and this splendid story accomplishes just that. There is definitely a need for a sequel, and I will be first in line to buy it!
October 13, 2025
I read Tony Earley's "Jim The Boy" a few years ago. It was an unassuming delight as Earley quickly created a memorable family who was living through the Great Depression after the loss of the young patriarch. There wasn't much in terms of plot, but Earley created such a lived-in world in rural North Carolina that kept you engaged. Most importantly, Earley made characters that made you want to check in on them later.
Enter "The Blue Star," which takes place roughly eight years after "Jim The Boy." This time, there is a definitive plot (Jim, a senior in high school, falls for Chrissie, a young woman who is half-Cherokee who is also the girlfriend of someone who is currently stationed overseas during the lead up to World War 2).
Earley touches on a several themes: racism toward indigenous individuals, poverty (Chrissie's boyfriend's family has money and they are not afraid to leverage it in terms of controlling Chrissie), the general definition of manhood (in terms of how a small town views those who didn't actively enlist for the war), and even teen pregnancy. And in terms of the lead-up to the war, there is a sense of dread as readers of the first book have practically watched a person grow up in front of their eyes, only to see them face a reality where they could easily be sent to die on a battlefield while they are still very much a kid.
It's not quite as compelling as "Jim the Boy." Some of the narrative detours don't exactly land. But overall, Earley again excels at creating realistic, unforced dialog between the characters, and giving each character a distinct personality without making them a stereotype.
Enter "The Blue Star," which takes place roughly eight years after "Jim The Boy." This time, there is a definitive plot (Jim, a senior in high school, falls for Chrissie, a young woman who is half-Cherokee who is also the girlfriend of someone who is currently stationed overseas during the lead up to World War 2).
Earley touches on a several themes: racism toward indigenous individuals, poverty (Chrissie's boyfriend's family has money and they are not afraid to leverage it in terms of controlling Chrissie), the general definition of manhood (in terms of how a small town views those who didn't actively enlist for the war), and even teen pregnancy. And in terms of the lead-up to the war, there is a sense of dread as readers of the first book have practically watched a person grow up in front of their eyes, only to see them face a reality where they could easily be sent to die on a battlefield while they are still very much a kid.
It's not quite as compelling as "Jim the Boy." Some of the narrative detours don't exactly land. But overall, Earley again excels at creating realistic, unforced dialog between the characters, and giving each character a distinct personality without making them a stereotype.
November 20, 2019
Six years since Jim Glass marveled at the world about as a ten year old becoming eleven brings Jim up to graduating high school looking at entering a war he much sooner not get involved. Not because he is a coward, it’s because he has finally realized how much he loves the people in his life. This ranges from his Mama to his uncles to pleasant life in little podunk Aliceville. But the one person he truly loves is Chrissie Steppe, and she might be the reason he comes back alive. With that many people to love it’s not hard to figure out a way to get back to them.
Blue Star is a continuation of Jim the Boy. Not quite as rich and fulfilling it nevertheless is a thoughtful, endearing, sometimes brutally frank account of a boy becoming a man before he is quite ready to do so.
If only the author would continue the series.
Blue Star is a continuation of Jim the Boy. Not quite as rich and fulfilling it nevertheless is a thoughtful, endearing, sometimes brutally frank account of a boy becoming a man before he is quite ready to do so.
If only the author would continue the series.
June 12, 2025
Seven years ago, readers everywhere fell in love with Jim Glass, the precocious 10-year-old at the heart of Tony Earley's bestseller Jim the Boy. Now a teenager, Jim returns in another tender and wise story of young love on the eve of World War II.
Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
Reading this book made me feel that the world will be ok...that people are good and we grow when we make hard choices. I felt like I was there with Jim, still love him as a teenager. I love the flow of the words and the way they make me feel.
Jim Glass has fallen in love, as only a teenage boy can fall in love, with his classmate Chrissie Steppe. Unfortunately, Chrissie is Bucky Bucklaw's girlfriend, and Bucky has joined the navy on the eve of war. Jim vows to win Chrissie's heart in his absence, but the war makes high school less than a safe haven and gives a young man's emotions a grown man's gravity.
Reading this book made me feel that the world will be ok...that people are good and we grow when we make hard choices. I felt like I was there with Jim, still love him as a teenager. I love the flow of the words and the way they make me feel.
July 23, 2017
"The Blue Star," which is essentially a sequel to "Jim the Boy," is a simple, well written book about Jim Glass and his experiences growing up in a small town in North Carolina during the early days of WWII. In this case, Jim is now a senior in high school and discovers that he is in love with a fellow classmate who is rumored to be engaged to Bucky Bucklaw, who joined the Navy on the eve of the US involvement in the war. This is a "coming of age" story, set in a time gone by that is moving, rich, and satisfying.
November 17, 2017
A sort-of sequel to the earlier novel, Jim the Boy, The Blue Star follows young Jim in his senior year of high school in 1941 North Carolina. Jim's innocence shines through through his school days, times with the women in his life: mom Elizabeth, ex-girlfriend Norma, and current love interest Chrissie. His best friend, Dennis Deane, and Jim go through the days trying to figure out the mysteries of life. When Pearl Harbor is bombed, the world changes and Jim signs up for the Army. The book ends with him shipping out on The Blue Star train.
April 3, 2019
I love Tony Earley. But like another favorite author, Anne Tyler, I am always surprised to find that I never give any of their books 5 stars. Both authors are similar in that they concentrate on character over plot... and do a beautiful job of sharing their characters with us in a simple and loving manner. I may not think their books are great, but they are consistently really, really good and leave me with a warm heart. I felt especially fond of Jim in this book because I felt like he could have been my grandpa as a boy.
December 13, 2018
Another winner from Tony Early, and I hope he's working hard to finish up a third novel about Jim. I'm waiting for Robert Caro's final LBJ bio installment and I'm waiting for George R.R. Martin's next Game of Thrones book and that's just about enough for one reader to handle. "The Blue Star" follows "Jim the Boy" beautifully, and we meet up again with Jim as a senior in high school. A true delight.
August 5, 2024
I found this book in a tiny library in Seattle and read it over a few days. It is a novel set in a town in rural North Carolina just before and after 7 Dec 1941. It is about young people and young love as WW II looms. Family lore is revealed, along with secrets. The older generation is often hard, sometimes fair, and dispenses homespun wisdom. The younger generation tries to find their way. There is an idealized simplicity to life in the story.
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January 5, 2025This carries on from Jim, the Boy and follows Jim through his high school years. One can certainly relate to all that Jim goes through as a teenager growing up when WWII was approaching. Life became so much more urgent and one learned things and understood things a little better as time went on. Relationships, particularly. Jim learns a lot about his parents and begins to understand more in his own life.
May 24, 2017
Jim Glass (Jim the Boy) returns and is coming of age. The pace of the story is relaxed but, like life, picks up steam as it goes along. It is the story of lives taking turns that are unexpected and yet these turns seem all the more natural, as if they were exactly where the characters had to go. A great read.
January 28, 2019
This follow-up to the book Jim the Boy finds jim at the precipice of adulthood and struggling with the many questions it comes with. Love, service, responsibilities, saying goodbye to high school friends, etc. Add to all this World War II breaking out and you have a young man who has to figure out how to navigate this totally new landscape called adulthood.
June 22, 2020
Picked up at McKay's: liked the cover and the author is from Nashville.
His earlier book told about a younger Jim.
This book has Jim as a senior in high school. In love with a poor, half-Cherokee girl in his class. It is 1941. At the end he is enlisted and a blue star banner is placed in his window.
His earlier book told about a younger Jim.
This book has Jim as a senior in high school. In love with a poor, half-Cherokee girl in his class. It is 1941. At the end he is enlisted and a blue star banner is placed in his window.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2022
The blue star takes us readers to the onset of America during WWII . The main 3 things in this book that made it TOO real like teen pregnancy, child abuse, and racial prejudice. Once you read the book it starts off with 2 types of letters and it gets you confused so i recommend reading the first book "jim the boy" anyways it was a MID book overall.
May 6, 2024
The Blue Star was a 4-star book until the last paragraph of page 199. I wish someone had told me to buckle up. That’s when it became a 5-Star + novel. It’s one thing to get a sense of where things are headed early-on but when Tony Earley gets us there it’s a whole other story — and one well worth reading.
June 14, 2025
I am in complete awe of this amazing novel. This book is a follow up to the novel “Jim the Boy” and what a follow up it was. Back to a simple yet complex time in history. I loved this book so much. It made me laugh and it made me cry. These two books are ones that I would want to read for the first again, they were simply that good.
August 16, 2017
A simple, yet beautiful story. My favorite line came at the end of the book.
"This is what my life tastes like, and the knowledge was brand new and it was the secret to everything and it thrilled him and he kissed her again and tried to remember it, but it wasn't enough."
"This is what my life tastes like, and the knowledge was brand new and it was the secret to everything and it thrilled him and he kissed her again and tried to remember it, but it wasn't enough."
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