Official Review: Just Give Me a Soft Place to Land
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Official Review: Just Give Me a Soft Place to Land
"Every woman, having experienced and survived their own painful journey, had developed a deep sense of compassion and understanding for the others. There was no longer anything shared in the group that would surprise the others or had not been heard before. These women exemplified the depth of some of the strongest emotions in life be they joy, anger, pain, or love." - Page 217.
Just Give Me a Soft Place to Land by Judy Condon takes us through the lives of three women, Beth, Caroline, and Sarah, in the 80s as they find solace in their friendship, which developed from their engagements in knitting, after everything they had been through and were still going through in life. Beth, having suffered a great loss at the age of sixteen and experienced abandonment by her loved ones, was suffering nightmares. Sarah, having suffered her own loss at a young age, was struggling with breaking out of her husband's shadow and becoming her own woman. Meanwhile, Caroline was living in fear since her husband's psychological issues made him dangerous to her. Together, these women would form a bond that would help them confront their past and present issues and provide them with a soft place to land.
Besides the theme of friendship, the book also explores themes of self-discovery, family influences, finding happiness, and love, and we are taken through these themes in a way that highlights several issues that women have been facing, so there are a lot of lessons for readers to pick up here.
Most of the story takes place in one scene, which is the loft the main characters meet to knit and discuss on Wednesdays and share their life experiences that drive the story. Therefore, the book is mostly dialogue. While I looked forward to other scenes exploring the main characters' lives outside their meetings and didn't get much of that, which was a dislike for me, their rich life experiences drove the story adequately and kept me interested throughout. I found it very easy to relate to most of what the women were going through, especially as they attached a lot of importance to painting a happy picture to outsiders before they found each other.
I liked that the author effectively displayed what the times were like through the characters. We get to see how Beth's father's participation in World War II meant that he wasn't around in the first few years of her life and how it affected her relationship with him. We also get to see the different stereotypes that constrained men and women in that time. The book is a very emotional read, as Judy Condon does a great job at conveying the characters' emotions to the reader, putting you directly in their shoes to feel their pain, loss, victories, and even the support they received from each other.
I found a few errors in the book, but they were all in the dialogue, so I could not count them. However, the book seemed like it was professionally edited to me. The main shortcoming for me was how tedious it was reading through the story consisting of just dialogue. Including some other scenes to show the characters' experiences outside their meetings would have helped in this area. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars due to the complaint I discussed. Readers who are going through difficult times in life can learn a thing or two from the characters' support for each other. Historical fiction lovers will also enjoy this book.
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Just Give Me a Soft Place to Land
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