Outside Valentine : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Flawless
Review: From start to finish, Outside Valentine is absorbing, smart, haunting, lyrical. Hard to believe this is a first novel. Almost scary to think what Ward could accomplish in her career. I'll be waiting for the next one...

Rating:
Summary: a novel worth reading
Review: I am fascinated by the author's technique of using three voices to tell this story, and how they all come together by the end of the book. Each voice evokes the flavor of his or her era. A very talented author has shared a book with us. I hope she will share more.

I do have one bit of advice to you, if you should read this wonderful book.....In the first few chapters, take note of the years....this is a story told by three people, in different times. Get to know them.


Thanks, Liza Ward, for your book.





Rating:
Summary: Outside Valentine
Review: I have just finished reading Outside Valentine by Liza Ward. Why didn't I know about this book when it first came out? It's an astounding debut. Liza Ward observes the effects of a family tragedy as it reverberates through generations. She speaks to our deepest and often darkest emotions through her simple, powerful and beautifully crafted prose. Five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Poetic and spellbinding
Review: I have just read Outside Valentine and found it both poetic and and extremely moving. It is a beautiful book which explores the the impact of a tragic event from many angles. The wintry scenes make it a perfect holiday gift.

I give it 4 1/2 stars

Rating:
Summary: Powerful fiction based on a true story
Review: Outside Valentine is an extraordinary book; heartbreaking yet affirming of life. Based on the actual events of a murderous crime spree in rural Nebraska in the Fifties, the novel explores the lingering effects on people caught in the aftermath of such tradgedy. Ultimately, life regains a foothold. I highly recommended the book and give it five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting page-turner
Review: Outside Valentine still haunts me weeks after I read it -- not only because of the delicacy and insight with which the author depicts these horrors, but because of the subtleties of character she manages to convey. The characters are utterly human, each in her own way dealing with devastating loss on the way to redemption. It's a beautiful book, and a story that will challenge even the most iron-fisted readers not to skip to the end to find out what happens.

Rating:
Summary: OUTSIDE VALENTINE - A LITERARY TRIUMPH
Review: Outside Valentine was the first book read in my book club and it is still the hands-down favorite. First time novelist Liza Ward manages to weave 3 very disparate narrative voices together to create a tapestry of a family tradgedy and how it continued to effect people and places. The writing is chilling, luminous, and succinct. That the material is based on real events that happened in the novelist's life adds a deeper layer of intensity to an already riveting novel. I can't wait for her next work! Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant debut novel
Review: Thank you, Liza Ward, for a compelling novel about an event that occurred in a gentler time and place. I grew up in Omaha during the "reign" of Charlie Starkweather, and my friends and I were fascinated and terrified by something so previously foreign to us.

This novel is told in three separate voices, and is extremely well-written. Each of the voices is believable, and never lets us forget that they are people in their teens with the motivation of that age group.

I look forward to reading Ms. Ward's next novel - this is a very talented writer.

Rating:
Summary: Awfully good
Review: This is a wonderfully written book. The author loves - and I mean loves - language and brings small images to telling life. But beyond bringing you to the times and places set in the novel, there is a beautiful, elegaic sensibility about the almost random situations that her deeply etched characters find themselves in. At times I thought, 'There but for the grace of God...', at times 'How could they think...'. I'm not sure how she did it, but in sifting through the events, thoughts and careless feelings of her three narrators, each of whom suffers from the kind of self-absorption that comes from being emotionally dammed up, she comes up with a kaleidoscopic panorama about the cruel, survivable nature of life. And thankfully, when the dam restraining one of the characters breaks, we're spared a melodramatic flood and rewarded with a credible, human response. (Why only four stars? It isn't 100 Years of Solitude or Ulysses; maybe the next book she writes...)

Rating:
Summary: Deeply moving
Review: This uniquely absorbing debut novel richochets through generations revealing the engrossing tale of the Starkweather murders; our country's first teenage serial killers. Even true crime buffs will find this a must read as the author is the granddaughter of two of the victims. Ward has the haunting perspective that can only be had through a lifetime of introspection trying to understand the incomprehensible. Her fine pitch and uncanny insight leave the reader waiting for more. Every character in this novel stands on its own but together they are a rich reveal of how actions can reverberate through the ages; leaving a wake of despair, destruction and, ultimately, redemption. Excellent.