Review of Family

[Ebele Ekelobi]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Family" by Maggie Whittemore.]

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5 out of 5 stars

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Family: Ties that Bind by Maggie Whittemore tells the story of family, love, faith, perseverance, and trust. In addition to the terrible event of Judy becoming an orphan at the age of seventeen, she lost a lot of the people she knew to an epidemic that broke out in her town. As much as she was deeply saddened by that, she decided to take charge of things at the farm and put grief to the side if she must survive. She suspected Brad’s father was responsible for her father’s death, so she hated Brad. They had a conversation, and Brad explained to her that things weren’t as they seemed. They go married not long afterwards and enjoyed marital bliss, but after Brad had gone back to the range after the winter, their family had to endure some difficult moments. While Judy was pregnant, a strange man tried to assault her at the farm but was unsuccessful. However, the attempt affected her baby and left her disabled after birth. How will their baby, Fern, turn out in the end? What more tragedy awaits the family? Find out from Maggie Whittemore’s masterpiece.

One of the things I liked about this book was its lesson on hard work. Despite losing family members in a short period, Judy realised that she had to work hard or she wouldn’t be able to survive. She didn’t sit around lazily while waiting to get pity from everyone. I also liked the development of the relationship between Fern and her father, Brad. It was beautiful to read about how much they bonded. I liked that Maggie Whitemore’s Family: Ties that Bind can be enjoyed by people of all ages because the author carefully avoided the inclusion of lewd words in it. The lessons on faith and perseverance are some of the pivotal lessons readers would want to pick from the book. It helped that the book was professionally edited; I could only see two errors in its over two hundred pages.

I didn't like that the book sort of oversimplified grief, especially as regards the loss of family members and loved ones. It made it seem like getting over grief was very easy and could be done with the snap of a finger. Another thing that didn't sit well with me was that the relationship between Judy and Brad seemed rushed at the beginning. It felt quite weird that he had just explained things to her one day, and they were married the next day.

I give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. The points I noted above did not take too much away from the beauty of this book. It was a really good read, and the positives to the book far exceed the negatives, so I didn't deduct a star.

I recommend this book to people with different disabilities; it will teach them that having disabilities does not mean they can’t go on to do great things. I also recommend it to people who have lost so much and are on the verge of giving up; they'll learn perseverance from this book.

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Family
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[Amy Luman]

Everyone deals with grief in their own way. I know that I don’t show it outwardly, and that annoys some people.