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Women's Fiction
Moon Women

Moon Women

List Price: $12.95
Your Price: $9.71
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's the women I know
Review: An excellent tale of exactly what families deal with every day... I felt as though I was following the characters around and only beginning to unwind their lives as the story occured. Duncan employs the geography and the pastoral life of western North Carolina in a masterful way. While I think everyone would enjoy this story, I agree with other reviewers that it may make the most sense to rural Southnerers.... it's what we know.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You can go home again!
Review: I heartily applaud Pamela Duncan for her first novel, "Moon Women". The book tells the story of 4 women trying to come to grips with the reality of their lives. Ruth Ann is the mother, just getting used to her freedom being divorced from her husband A.J. But in one day her life suddenly does a complete turn around and she finds herself trying to once again relate with her daughter Ashley 19, who has just gotten out of rehab and come home to stay and who is pregnant. Then there is Marvelle, Ruth Ann's mother who at 84 is slowly sliding into senility. Her mother has been living with Ruth's sister Cassandra but, Marvelle decides she would rather stay with Ruth Ann and Ashley.
Thus starts the story of nine months out of these women lives as they learn from and about each other. Ashley who has spent 19 years running away from home now finds herself on a journey to find herself, Cassandra who has always hid behind her obesity and lonliness trys to come to terms with the life she has been dealt. Marvelle living between today and the past and has stories she wants her daughters and granddaughter to know before she passes. Ruth Ann is just trying to hang on to each of them and somehow find herself too. This is a heartwarming story that will leave the reader glad they took the time to listen.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not for grammar mavens.
Review: I'm afraid I didn't finish this novel because it was very gratingly written in dialect. The whole thing, without pause. Even descriptions, even people's thoughts. If cutesy dialect-writing gets on your nerves, don't order this.

I couldn't bear the precious writing style long enough to finish it. Somehow, as a bluecollar Southerner, I felt condescended to with all those "she done"s. You know, even the crackeriest cracker isn't quite that bad, particularly people the age of the mother & daughter characters, who have actually attended high school (I could understand it more for the grandmother character, but ALL THREE CHARACTERS HAVE THE SAME VOICE with the SAME grammar quirks). I worked in a food stamp office in South Carolina for nine years and I never met anyone quite that unintelligible. We're not that quaint, honey; sometimes our verbs even agree. Honestly! Give this a miss unless you enjoyed Uncle Remus.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Robin's Review
Review: In the tradition of Eudora Welty and Lee Smith, comes this story of down home North Carolina women. If you love southern fiction, then you will take a shining to Moon Women. The characters are very real as is the way the speak. Anyone familiar with the south will love the dialect that this author pulls off. Moon Women weaves the crisis of life with humor and it keeps the reader turning the pages. I look forward to reading more books by this writer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A wonderful jouney of women in the South!
Review: Pamela Duncan has written a beautiful debut novel. Her characters are three-dimensional and their names only begin to tell the story. This book is filled with metaphors and thought provoking moments. Marvella Moon, the senior protagonist, is a sage; she enriches the reader of her simplistic, yet astonishing wisdom. "Moon Women" is a joyous read, used for engaging discussion at my book club meeting. A wonderful book!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: MOON WOMEN Has Its Moments
Review: Pamela Duncan's book has enjoyable moments, to be sure. Most of the voices are engaging and likable, but overall the novel is lightweight. Lightweight is probably what most people want to read these days (look at Terry McMillan's popularity and the Ya-Ya Sisterhood), but if you are interested in a novel with real weight and power, this is probably not it. Duncan has the talent to write more substantive books, and here's hoping she does.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I laughed and cried.
Review: Pamela Duncan's novel is wonderful. I found myself crying toward the end and I'm not even sure why. She just must have struck a chord with the varied voices of the generations of women (and even the men).
Other reviewers have criticized the use of poor grammar but many people DO talk that way. I thought that kind of talk made the characters all the more real. And women through the generations use the same kind of speech unless they leave the environment.
I really liked the faith shared by Marvella; her dying was poignant.Life continued on to the next Moon woman.
I look forward to the next Duncan novel.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not a masterpiece, but a good read
Review: Sprawling, slow moving tale of several generations of women. Although I enjoyed it, it was a LONG LONG book. Some of the conclusions at the end, I was unsure of the point. The maternity of one of the daughters, seemed pointless to me. If one of them was going to be the daughter of another character, I would have thought a different person would have been better--made more of a point.

But, in general, it was pleasing, enjoyable, and a good read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A wonderful tale about intergenerational relationships
Review: Take three generations of women from the same family, add in their problems and secrets, and mix it with the understanding, but at times unorthodox, support they give each other, and you have a heart-warming story from Pamela Duncan. "Moon Women" is a solid 4 read. If not for a slow start, which made me wonder if I should give it up, this would have earned a 5 from me. Duncan weaves the story of life's lessons and the need for ties between mothers, daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters. By the end of the story, I loved each of these women, who started out like a portrait of dysfunction. It also displays the strength of women who can forgive the men in their lives, and shows why this is oftentimes the best path to take.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I Thought It Was Cute
Review: This was a cute read though slightly boring. It is written around the lives of four women in a southern family, spanning several generations -- from the eccentric matriarch (who is simply comical), to the control freak mother and her dreamer of a sister, down to the troublesome, pregnant 19-year old daughter. There is nothing really page turning about this book, and there doesn't appear to be a well thought out plot, but it was cute nonetheless.

Warning: The grammar will make you cringe, but somehow makes the narration more believable.


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