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Summary: Maturation and Initiation
Review: "Ordinary People" by Judith Guest, is a wonderful novel about maturation and initiation into the "real world". After attempting suscide over the loss of his brother, Conrad Jarrett, is struggling to retain his life. Growing up, Conrad never really got in trouble. His older brother, Buck, was always being taught the "lessons of life". This made loosing a loved one, even harder for Conrad to deal with. After being released from the hospital for attempting suscide, Conrad has to struggle with being accepted back into the community. Conrad's parents are very diferent, Beth is very concentrated on the Jarret family looking "normal" to society. Calvin, was raised with out a father of his own, and is struggling with the indoctrination of how to be a happy person. Traditional characteristics in this society, for a family, is to look happy even when they are not. Beth is most focused on this and becomes very upset when Calvin brings Conrad's problems into public eye. Conrad has to return to school a year behind where he should be, due to missing finals. His friends have all moved on and he feels left behind and out of place. While he trys to put all the pieces of his life back in place, he must also deal with a family that has ben torn apart. Judith Guest used maturation, initiation, and indoctrination, to show the real problems of families and how they struggle to over come them. Finding true happiness on the inside and looking deeper to what lies beneath.
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Summary: Ordinary People
Review: I think that Ordinary People, written by Judith Guest, is an extraordinary book. It deals with the small and seemingly normal problems of an "ordinary family" and also the large and unusual problems of a troubled and traumatized family. Conrad attempts suicide after losing his brother Buck in a boating accident. Buck set the standards for Conrad and it was too hard for him to live up to them when Buck was gone. The loss of Buck and the near loss of Conrad has a profound affect on the Jarret Family. Conrad has trouble trying to fit back into his social life. He is also having trouble with his friends and family. The father Calvin is not sure how to talk and act around his son. Another problem of Calvin's is that he has trouble communicating with his wife Beth. Beth will not face the challenges the family is facing. She believes that Calvin is too worried over Conrad and that she has better ways to solve the problems in the family. The father and son both go to a councilor for guidance and it helps them cope with their problems but the mother believes that she does not need a councilor although she may have needed him more than anyone else. After both Con and Cal's sessions with the councilor they are closer and their live are beginning to go back to "normal." I have found this book both quite interesting and immensely enjoyable. Because I was required to read this book for school I was skeptical of how good the book would be. After reading this book I was thourouly impressed. I have never read a book anywhere close to this one. It has an interesting plot, and is very well written. Ordinary People has been one of the few books that I enjoy reading and also found intriguing. This is a book in which to learn from and to think about. It has given me many ideas and made me think about my family life. The book is definitely worth reading for enjoyment or requirement for a class.
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Summary: One of My Absolute Favorites
Review: It has been almost three years since I have read this book for the first time and to this day it is still one of my absolute favorites. What is wonderful about this book is that you can identify and sympathize with every character (even Beth at times). Ordinary People evokes many emotions inside you; anger (at Beth for not being the mother Conrad needed), sympathy (for Cal because he married a woman who couldn't and didn't love him the way he needed), and most importantly understanding. For those of you who read and love this novel all I can say is watch the movie because it is one the most mesmerizing adapted films (after the Godfather of course) I have ever seen.
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Summary: My Review on Ordinary People
Review: "Ordinary People" is a story of love,hate,loss of composure, and mental illness. The instant I started to read it I realized how realistic it was. It's not one of those books that you read and get nothing out of it; I recieved virtues that are going to help me in intolerance and love. For instance, the boy Conrad is a mental case and as the book goes on he gets a loving girlfriend that can appreciate him and help him though tough times. Meanwhile his parents are trying to work a problem out of their own. Deep down inside they love each other,but there are spiratic agruments questioning thier interest in each other. Find the rest out for your self. I encourage people of all ages to read this book and I guarantee you will get that feeling of importance after you finish.
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Summary: Better the I thought it would be
Review: Ordinary People by Judith Guest is a good book. By good I don't mean it's great, but it's not bad, and it's worth buying. Ordinary people is about a boy who struggles with life after an attempt to commit suicide. He has a hard time doing this which will eventually hurt friendships and his family. The things I found most enjoyable about this book were the boys relationships with other people. For instance one of his best friends is a "strange" psychiatrist that at first he doesn't really want to go to. Where as he and his mother almost border line hate eachother. The major downside to this book is it can be very dull at times. At the beggining it takes a good amout of time to get interesting. Overall I would recomend this book.
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Summary: VERY HARD TO FOLLOW!!!
Review: This book was very hard to follow. It seemed that one character would be thinking or talking about something, and all of the sudden it would be another character talking. An example of this would be when Connor starts talking about his brother Buck and then it starts saying that his dad wasn't taking it to well. The book didn't seem to have any point. It was about a kid who's brother had died in an accident, and he tries to commit sucicide. I feel bad for Connor, but I just can't relate to it. Also the language was pretty bad. Some of the language just wans't needed. I think some of it was just there to be there, not for any reason. The book also didnt have enough detail. For instance when it says his brother dies it doesnt say where or any detail. It just says he dies from a boating accident. Even that is hard to get out of the book. For me this book it a little to hard to follow, but try it out.
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Summary: A good book by Judith Guest
Review: Ordinary People by Judith Guest is a good book. By good I don't mean it's great but it's not bad and it's worth buying. This book is a teenager who struggles with life after attempting to commit suicide. He has a hard time doing this which eventually changes friendships and hurts his family. THe things I found most enjoyable about this book was his relationships with different people and how much they differ. For instance one of his best friends a psychiatrist which his dad makes him go to. Where as him and his mother just don't understand eachother. Some of the downsides are it takes a little while to get into it. It's very slow at the beggining and in the middle but then it climaxes into something big. overall I would recomend this book.
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Summary: Much better than I origanilly hoped
Review: This book was required reading for my English class. When I first heard a umamry of the book, it did not seem to speak to me, it did not seem relavant to my life. However, after reading the novel, i realized that this book aplies to everyone. It's about a boy comming of age, it's about a family trying to heal their grievances. It turned out to be a heart-warming novel. All of the characters didn't seem sureal or odd, they seemed like normal people, with normal and real problems.
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Summary: Aly's Bookworm
Review: "Ordinary people" by Judith Guest we can encounter a great deal of vulnerability and artificiality in The Gerads , an upper -middle class American family. It tells the story of the devastating effects loss can have on what to all appearances is a "model" family. The family consists of Beth, the mother who is perfectly callous, cold and unfeeling, Cal,the father who is constantly manipulated by his wife, but is in a constant fight to keep his family together, Conrad, the emotionally unstable teenage son, and Buck, the "perfect" son who died in a boating accident. The story is set in Illinois, which adds to the trauma of the story line. The atmosphere the family lives in before the tragic death of the perfect son, Buck is "great". Buck made the entire family proud. After his death in the boating accident the facade the family lived in started falling apart. Conrad felt he was responsible for the death of Buck and blamed himself. He even tried committing suicide and this just made his "perfect" mom mad. This family has trouble communicating and they just avoid talking about their problems. Whenever Cal and Conrad try speaking up Beth interrupts with her attitude and brings up supposedly "happier" memories. Berger, a psychiatrist that Conrad was seeing made him realize the truth about what really was going on in his family. He was of great help to Conrad and Cal, but Beth didn't want to see him because she thought family problems should be fixed within the family. Overall, I think this book is really good in making you realize that your own problems are so normal and many people go through the same thing. Even though they had more severe problems like depression, it helped me see my issues aren't that bad when compared to others. I recommend you watch the movie because it's easier to understand the meaning of their situation.
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Summary: The way life really is
Review: This book is an amazing book for teenagers to read. It does not make life perfect like in some other books, but instead it gives some real life problems families have to face. It is best to be read as a teenager so they are presented with the idea of life not being easy.
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