Rating: 
Summary: What a Shame it wasn't EDited
Review: I love the premise of this book. I found it compelling enough to stay up all night reading it. BUT I found the interior and exterior dialogue ... unrealistic and tiring. Everything is here that needs to be here. And lots is here that could have been cut. That would have taken the hard work of editing out the repetitions, the wordiness, the paragraphs that could have been pruned to mere! sentences. Maybe when one is as famous as Rosellen Brown, there is a freedom? to NOT condense. To NOT keep the reader in mind. So, I come away feeling both moved and tired. Moved by the relation between mother and long-estranged daugher. Moved by the truth of both realities. Tired by the long-windedness of it all.
Rating:
Summary: Stereotypes don't make realistic plotlines
Review: I was disappointed in this latest novel by Ms Brown. She's a better writer than this. Every person and situation seemed so contrived. Much of the dialog was excellent and sounded like real people talking, but the situations didn't ring true. Why would a doctor even meet and marry Miriam? Even the ending was awfully improbable. I've directed a summer camp and there would be no way a stranger could walk around the way Ronnee did. Read Tender Mercies or another of Brown's novels to enjoy her use of language with more realistic characters.
Rating:
Summary: Stereotypes don't make realistic plotlines
Review: I was disappointed in this latest novel by Ms Brown. She's a better writer than this. Every person and situation seemed so contrived. Much of the dialog was excellent and sounded like real people talking, but the situations didn't ring true. Why would a doctor even meet and marry Miriam? Even the ending was awfully improbable. I've directed a summer camp and there would be no way a stranger could walk around the way Ronnee did. Read Tender Mercies or another of Brown's novels to enjoy her use of language with more realistic characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Half a Heart
Review: It's been a while since I've read a book that totally mesmerized me. I wanted it to go on and on. It is a beautiful story, yet does get ugly and strange at times. That's what makes it so special. You want to keep reading to find out what will happen next.I felt it was very realistic, considering the timing. I also enjoyed the way Brown let Ronnee and Miriam speak throughout the book.I recommend this book and look forward now to reading Brown's other books
Rating: 
Summary: A major disappointment
Review: Ms. Brown is a more-than-competent writer and the premise of this novel is intriguing, but it disappoints on nearly every level; the storyline is tedious and the characters self-absorbed, annoying, and ultimately predictable. Most unforgivably, nearly every character or situation in the book disintegrates into stereotype. By the time I reached the chapter dealing with Ronnee's false arrest and incarceration, the circumstances felt so contrived I lost every bit of sympathy or interest. Why, after such a potentially groundbreaking premise, did Ms. Brown resort to stock scenes and cliches? The story, and her readers, deserved better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating and Disappointing Novel
Review: Poorly written novel which was difficult to finish. The novel was more about the issues of the mother and less about establishing and maintaining a relationship with a daughter that she had not seen in 17 years. It was somewhat impractible to believe that this mother would give up the child she had raised for 8 months without a fight. Second, it was curious that it would take her 17 years to track her down. I did not find that the story maintained a consistent stream of conciousness and the author appeared to jump from one scene to another without intergrating the various themes. I failed to see the significance of some characters, such as Justin and the re-emergence of Jewel. I also found the novel to be incredibly stereotypical of blacks, whites, Jews, southerners etc. The stereotypes were perhaps the biggest disappointment. I would not purchase this book in hardcover. Wait for it in paperback or better yet, get in from the library.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing premise, flawed execution
Review: Readers of Brown's BEFORE AND AFTER, a novel that packed a tremendous emotional wallop, may be disappointed in HALF A HEART. The author starts with an intriguing premise: Miriam, an idealistic young Jewish woman, gets caught up in the civil rights struggle during the 1960's. In the course of teaching at an African-American college in Mississippi, she has a passionate love affair with a charismatic fellow teacher, the consequences of which profoundly affect the course of her adult life. While the reader is made to care about how Miriam will resolve her conflicts, the author spends far too much time describing the characters' feelings and emotions instead of letting their words and actions speak for themselves. In addition, Miriam sometimes comes across as a kvetch! Get on with your life, woman, you want to say, and stop all this analyzing and brooding. The book would have been far more effective had it been one hundred pages shorter. (For a more tightly written, suspenseful examination of how the baggage of the 60's can affect lives in the 90's, read Sue Miller's WHILE I WAS GONE.)
Rating:
Summary: Whole Hearted Praise for "Half A Heart"
Review: Rosellen Brown has created very real and all-too human characters in this vivid book. Miriam and Ronnee's struggles to accept themselves, to accept one another, and to accept the past are powerful and painful. The complex issues of race, motherhood (and daughterhood), class, and honesty are addressed beautifully, with powerful prose and visceral descriptions. Brown enters the heads of both characters with equal strength and emotional intuition. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Complex Characters Make This Novel Well Worth the Read
Review: Rosellen Brown's latest novel, Half a Heart, revolves around two very well draw and complex characters: Miriam, and her half-black and semi-abandoned daughter, Veronica. There isn't much "black and white" here as far as issues and statements go....just a lot of gray - like real life. It's also very obvious that Ms. Brown lived for many years here in Houston! She acurately and articulately describes the oppressive heat and the insulated nieghborhoods to a tee!
Rating:
Summary: good but not excellent
Review: This book is done in layers, with a multitude of topics to peel away and discover. Mother/daughter relationships, racial issues, [ bi/racial attitudes, southern segregation,black/white relationships ] teen-age sensitivities, family harmony, and plain old prejudices are all involved. The characters are a bit hard to see as "real" but the plot moves along in a moderate mode of predictibility. However, there are several important "messages" to be gleaned from this book and it does bear reading and concintration!
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