About book The True And Outstanding Adventures Of The Hunt Sisters (2005)
When I first started this, I didn't want to continue and I didn't like the format. But I kept going, and what was at first an annoyed start turned into an overwhelmingly, satisfying finish. John Green said, “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal."And for me this, novel has become the latter. I don't want to bother persuading other people to read the book because I feel like it has touched me in ways that I can't explain. Maybe it's because I felt somehow connected to Olivia's character, some of her letters are a like a mirror of my own thoughts, and her relationship with her sister was so real and beautiful. Here are some of my favorite quotes; "You climbed into my bag and I held you, and I promised wouldn't crash down or get hit by lightening, and eventually you fell asleep that way, clutching my shoulder and my side, your breathing in sync with mine like we were one body, and though the storm rocked our tree ship, the rain pounding the roof, the branches scratching its wood sides, inside we were safe and warm and okay, and in the morning we woke up with the sun and the birds and felt like heroes." "My mother. Why does she torment me so? Why can't my feelings for her be uncomplicated? Half the time I want to slap her and other half I want to hold her and the other half to be held by her.""There was no roof, no ceiling, only the star-filled sky. I sat against a wall and stared at it. Infinity. The simple fact of infinity is enough to make me very open-minded about the mystery of life. Isn't finite the opposite of infinite? How can we ever know anything definitively when the universe is infinite and expanding? The answer is always over that next hill, and the next, and next. When I look at the night sky and consider my relationship to it - one puny organism, out of billions of puny organisms, just sitting in the remains of an ancient chapel, breathing in and out, watching for shooting stars, trying to pick out the constellations, still - this moment both grounds me in the tactile reality of dirt, air, and skin and also lifts me to believe that there must be someone, something up there, there must be. While floods and famine and cancer certainly suggest the universe is pure chaos and randomness, the beauty in the elaborate and connected natural order of things - of veins of a leaf, of a river, of a bold of lightening. to the veins in my hand - suggest there is purpose and meaning, and yes, maybe even something bigger and better than us. And more than the incredible natural order of the universe, there is love: how can love bet he produce of anything short of divine? Or is it simply our capacity to perceive and feel all this that is divine? Is divinity not some abstract unknowable "force" named God but our uniquely human ability to experience it? Do you think you can only feel faith - you can only believe in God, in a meaningful universe - if you were brainwashed with Bible stories, the Talmud, Zen koans as a kid? You know how envious I am of Catholics and Jews, whose faith seems to become a part of their very blood and remain with them long after their educated brains have rejected it. But maybe our journey of doubt is a journey of faith, too.""This is an amazing place. The things medicine can do, all the lives it prolongs and improves and saves; it's as awesome to me as the greatest art, music, and natural wonders of the world." "The more science can do, the more we expect it to do: the more problems science solves - from infertility to cancer - and answers it provides - from the origins of the planet to the human genome - the more faith we put in it to answer everything, when inevitably, like a computer, science can only provide information, never understanding. It can never answer the question why? Only we can find meaning in what science explains, and I'd still like to know that meaning is not just make-believe, a dressing up of the facts to suit our childlike longing for a happy ending.""Why do I visit churches when I don't believe in God? When I walk into an old cathedral like they have on every corner here in Spain, I in fact feel as if I'm trespassing. I feel I've made a mistake, I've entered a secret club, that I shouldn't be there, especially if a service is in progress. When it's empty I enter the ancient darkness and I smell the damp cement and the burning wax, and the statues of Jesus and the sad-eyed Virgin look down at me through the vaulted shadows, and I look at the marble tombs and sarcophagi and the magnificent frescoes of the glory and the agony of the lives of Jesus and the saints, as a pale robed priest or nun floats by on air, silent as spirit, and I see the bowed heads of believers on their knees, and I hear the muffled whispers of their prayers, I feel alone and part from them and that I don't belong in that place. I want to. I am in awe of it. But I'm outside. I envy praying people. I want to feel what they feel. There is magic there, but I can only watch it, like an audience watches a ballet, never knowing what it feels like to pirouette on one toe, to sail through the air in a grand jete.........Then I find an empty pew in the back of the sanctuary and I wait. I breathe in the musty, mote-filled air, air heavy with centuries of hope and prayers, with wishes granted and denied, air that's filled the lungs of crying babies as they were christened with holy water and the lungs of mourning mothers, and now mine, as I say a prayer for Maddie, and wait."
By the time I was 19 my grandmother had broken her neck and was told that she would never walk again, she did;I sat in an ICU unit while the doctor told us that my dad would not make it through the night, he did (only to bravely face a horrible disease for 30 years);I sat on my mom's lap hearing that my sister may not be coming home from Children's Hospital ICU , but she did (for 17 more years). There were many more times that I learned that illness is a part of life. It is something that you fight and have a good life in spite of. At 19, I lost my innocence and learned that illness can also be terminal.Perhaps that is why i gravitate toward novels about sisters and enjoy them. (I can recommend many- deep ones, funny ones etc) But I also felt that if I could write a novel perhaps it would be cathartic, but alas, my creative writer teacher told me that I would never be a writer and to look to being a copy editor. I knew that my words would never make a person laugh or cry or even think, so I went into medicine.This book is not for everyone. It is not even a great book yet somehow I feel that if I had ever written that book this might have been it - or at least similar. It resonated with me. In the afterword,I found Elisabeth did write this book for catharsis or healing. I had hoped that she found it. For she had many of the same feelings as I ( and probably all families) of why didn't that 1 in a million miracle happen to my family, to my sister.Tragedy is supposed toteach us -but when something so bad happens and we can't figure out the lesson- who designated that lesson? Is faith in God or hope in medicine just a silly delusion? That can't be the lesson.Elisabeth's sister quotes Auden: But once in a while the odd thing happens, Once in a while the dream comes true, And the whole pattern of life is altered Once in a while the moon turns blue.This novel makes you laugh and makes you cry.If you are not starting at the same place as I, you may judge it harshly but if you are,I recommend it.
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This is the story of two sisters, told in epistolary form entirely from one of the sister's POV. It took me a while to get into it, and, at first, I couldn't figure out why there were (literally) pages upon pages of review blurbs in the beginning.But then the story swept me away, and I got to know the main character, Olivia, by reading her letters to her sick sister, Maddie, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Michael, and other people in her life. I learned how she'd risen to where she was in her career as a Hollywood producer struggling to get her first big picture made, and how she and her boyfriend had fallen out of love, and about her father and mother and best friend and especially her sister.Even though there was a lot (a LOT) of language and some descriptions of guy-girl scenes that I didn't appreciate, I don't think the book was a total waste of time (hence the three-star rating). I loved the story, minus the Content. I've always had a thing for Hollywood stories, sister stories, and cancer stories, and this seemed like a good combination of the three. (I picked it up at a used book store a month or so ago, having no previous knowledge of the book, and bought it. I never do that. LOL.)Since I bought it, I'll probably keep it, and I may even read it again. I loved the characters, which were the best part of the book by far - which, imho, is something every writer should strive for.
—Ashley Elliott
Alright, I’ll admit that alongside Doerr, Kingsolver and Liz Gilbert’s latest, this little book may not be utterly worthy of that fifth glittering star, but I absolutely LOVED it at this particular moment on my reading journey. Sure, there are those in some circles who will tut-tut, look down their noses and haughtily admonish my rating with muttered curses resembling, “Eeeww, Chick-Lit? Rah-lly??” I stand by it. Olivia Hunt and her various epistles simply glowed with a light of their own, brightening my brief leisurely moments over the past week. The format made this book super easy to pick up and devour those conveniently bite-sized communiques - between phone calls, during noisy swimming lessons or before my heavy eyelids snapped their match sticks in the evenings.I laughed out loud, I drenched my pillow and the memory of one sister’s heart-wrenching struggles, with work, love and family crises will stay with me for a while yet. I enjoyed Robinson's shrewd perceptions of Hollywood lifestyles and that super-plastic, tidal world of “The Business”. And Olivia’s unquenchable humour, self-efficacy, wit and directness, always eager to clarify a point, apologise and smooth over an argument, take someone to task or simply to continue a conversation with her patient pen and paper, spread over so many miles and days. Witnessing Olivia’s relationships (friends, work, family, lovers) through her diligent and prolific personal correspondence drew me into her joys and struggles yet cleverly offered meaningful insights into the other characters as well. By the end I felt I’d met them all and it mattered not that there were scant clues about physical appearances. I felt like I’d glimpsed everyone only from the inside yet that was sufficient. Is that weird?Highly recommended if you’re ready for a dead easy, rollercoaster read that tugs at your heart and your funny bone at the same time.
—Maria
I really wanted to like this book, having received it as a gift from someone who knows the author personally and with whom I share the drama of much of the story's themes (sisterhood, close relative with cancer.) But I have to say overall I was disappointed. The writing itself is better than I expected from a book of its type (chick lit?) but sometimes even that is hard to believe coming from the voice of a Hollywood movie producer. But ok, i guess it's possible. But really, does it all have to be in her voice? Especially when actually she's a little tiresome after a while? And what were the so-called adventures of the sisters anyway? I would have liked more of the few stories you get from their childhood (and told in a more believable way - not for example in a letter to her movie director who she barely knows.) When the inevitable happens at the end (spoiler alert) I know I was supposed to cry, and sure I was moved but it didn't really grab me quite as much as I wished it had. I liked the Don Quixote parallel - it was almost spelled out a little too obviously in the end but not quite, which I appreciated. Overall I guess I thought it was ok- a decent vacation read (which is when I read it) and perhaps therapeutic for someone going through a similar experience, but I'm afraid it didn't knock my socks off.
—Lynne
