Knowing

Rating:
Summary: It's a shame...
Review: ... The book began OK, but soon became unbelievable. True, Jackson was a selfish [guy]... but Ginger wasn't much better -- incredibly stubborn, and never, ever satisfied with anything. She definitely provoked some of the stuff that happened to her. She was easily one of the most annoying characters I've ever encountered in a novel. By the book's end, after she STILL wasn't satisfied, you just wanted someone to throw her off a skyscraper, followed by Jackson, so the two of them can never show up in a book again. McMillan is just an OK writer, but successful because a lot of people buy, read and rave about her books (and books like them) for the wrong reasons. Read a novel as a novel, not a life experience.

Rating:
Summary: Ginger and a lot of spice.
Review: I read this book with ease and enjoyed it very much. It did not have the typical fantasy or fairy-tale plot used by some first time writers. Ginger, Jackson, their family and all other characters in the book were somewhat realistic. Ginger and Jackson both work in a factory. She's a manual laborer and he's management. Ginger talks about how unattractive her hands have become from working in a factory for so many years and desires to change all that by one day, becoming her own boss. She's also self-conscious about having alopecia but has enough self-confidence to look past it and not let it slow her role. However, Jackson still finds her exciting and attractive despite her hair loss. He is subtley domineering and wants Ginger to be more like his own mother who lives in Guntown, MS. He hesitates to encourage Ginger's business ventures because of her past failings. This was a good book about a wife's love for her husband, a mother's love for her children, a faithful friend, and a woman with enough courage and determination to venture forward against her husband's objections. I did not hesitate to buy and begin reading Ms. McMillan's 2nd book, One Better.

Rating:
Summary: Garbage?
Review: Well, almost. At least the grammer was correct. The book, though, was blabbering and pointless. Once you're past the first few chapters, Ginger's a hard person to like, despite her problems. And her husband is worse. The two of them behave like something out of a bad movie -- a REALLY bad movie. And, at the very end, Ginger STILL wasn't satisfied? Puh-leeze. She won totally, and it still wasn't enough. A better ending would have been both of them falling off a roof so we'd never, ever have to read about them again.