His Mother's Son

Rating:
Summary: Emmons is Getting There!
Review: Cai Emmons is an excellent writer. In His Mother's Son her choice and simplicity of language is beautiful, and the plot is complex and real-a page turner! Emmons handles the flashbacks (which can be tricky) between Cady (past) and Jana (present) with ease. The characters are believable except her husband, Cooper. How does he really feel? What makes him tick? I liked the novel very much but the ending unravels which weakens the story. I look forward to a very talented author's upcoming books.

Rating:
Summary: Emmons is Getting There!
Review: Cai Emmons is an excellent writer. In His Mother's Son her choice and simplicity of language is beautiful, and the plot is complex and real-a page turner! Emmons handles the flashbacks (which can be tricky) between Cady (past) and Jana (present) with ease. The characters are believable except her husband, Cooper. How does he really feel? What makes him tick? I liked the novel very much but the ending unravels which weakens the story. I look forward to a very talented author's upcoming books.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling but Clunky
Review: Cai Emmons novel His Mother's Son asks the simple question of when is genetic past prologue. In a (literally) former life, physician Jana Thomas was the closest - perhaps too close - companion to her younger brother, Varney. Varney committed acts of rage one sees most clearly on Fox News, destroying his family and others, and Jana (then known as Cady) changes her name, and begins a new life. Years later, her own six-year-old son Evan displays some aggressive tendencies, which others in the novel (and at least this reader) attribute to "boys will be boys" behavior, and Jana's life and new family disintegrate over her concern that Evan will be just like Varney. Emmons' novel does a fine job in working from the central plot conflict - will history through genetics repeat itself, and what can Jana do to avoid it - and presents believable characters and situations. I would not describe her writing as particularly fluid, viewing her prose as mostly workmanlike.
By far the strongest portions of the novel occur when Jana and her husband separate, and Jana reunites with Varney, now incarcerated and dying of AIDS in a prison hospice. Jana must here confront how much of her brother she has in herself. If, as she believes, she and Varney still share much, how can she forgive him when the same act would require her to forgive herself? Is Varney, at this point abandoned to prison for years, with his hundreds of letters to Cady/Jana never opened, even ready to forgive her. This is a very good novel, prevented from being an excellent book only by the occasional clunkiness of Emmons' prose.

Rating:
Summary: A Psychological Masterpiece
Review: I can describe "His Mother's Son" in three words...

WOW. WOW. WOW.

Jana Thomas is hiding something- dark,indescribable secrets;
and by concealing these secrets, her own life begins unraveling-
Out of control. She becomes an ineffective mother, wife and friend. She begins to see events in distorted, unrealistic ways, and by doing this begins to become disturbed and obsessed herself.

I loved this book; The psychological character studies, how our childhood molds us and our genetics sculpt us. How we, by denying our past, become ineffectual,unavailable adults...

Cai Emmon's is polished and brilliant in her precision and understanding of the human animal. Her voice is beautiful, flowing, and caused my breath to quicken and stop during most of the reading of "His Mother's Son"

This book will make all of it's readers look at themselves in a new and uncomfortable way. And by doing this, discover that the past can never be lost or cast aside... Because like Jana, it will find you, consume you and rule you...
Until you finally make peace with it. (A must read for 2003~!)

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat bewildered
Review: I found the premise of this book to be extraordinarily interesting; however, unlike some other reviewers, I did not find that it fulfilled its early promise. It seemed to plod along without any particular insights into Cady. Her husband was an enigma to me - and his relationship to his mother was vaguely disturbing. I think it is an average book. It didn't leave me with any lingering thoughts - on the contrary, I felt disappointed that there wasn't more to this book.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat bewildered
Review: I found the premise of this book to be extraordinarily interesting; however, unlike some other reviewers, I did not find that it fulfilled its early promise. It seemed to plod along without any particular insights into Cady. Her husband was an enigma to me - and his relationship to his mother was vaguely disturbing. I think it is an average book. It didn't leave me with any lingering thoughts - on the contrary, I felt disappointed that there wasn't more to this book.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Written. Characters I Truly Cared About.
Review: I just finished the book and I totally loved it. I will probably read it again because it was saturated with detail - I also really miss the characters already.

"His Mother's Son" perfectly rounds out and portrays the balance between good and evil inside every human. Whether the "evil" is murder or childhood awakenings; it addresses the "bad" in all of us and the fear that this will somehow fly out of control if we ignore the thoughts and tendancies.

However, this book not only paints the images of fear and balance, Cai Emmons does an INCREDIBLE job of painting her characters. These characters seem so real and not at all fabricated in any way. I found a little of myself inside each character in this story and found myself caring deeply about what happened next to each of them.

I found myself wishing the story would go on and on and my only complaint is that it ended too abruptly for me. However; if it were up to me I suppose there would have been no end.

As far as technicalities, the only distraction I had during the reading was one typo (page 17) and the repeated use of one word "sinewy". It is such an odd word, to see it at least 9 times in one book was a bit distracting to me. Then again, I may be just a little obsessive compulsive in my inability to ignore patterns. :)

I remained totally engaged with this book through the entire 8 hours it took for me to complete it. Cai Emmons constantly switched back and forth between second and third person voices... and I never really noticed it until 3/4 through the book. Even then it was so well done that I was not distracted by it at all which makes me wonder if that is how I was kept engaged.

I very much recommend this book and admire Cai Emmons as a writer. I sincerely appreciate the fact that I never felt manipulated as a reader, nor did I find anything in the book predictable. I anxiously await her next offering if there is one.

Paula

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Written. Characters I Truly Cared About.
Review: I just finished the book and I totally loved it. I will probably read it again because it was saturated with detail - I also really miss the characters already.

"His Mother's Son" perfectly rounds out and portrays the balance between good and evil inside every human. Whether the "evil" is murder or childhood awakenings; it addresses the "bad" in all of us and the fear that this will somehow fly out of control if we ignore the thoughts and tendancies.

However, this book not only paints the images of fear and balance, Cai Emmons does an INCREDIBLE job of painting her characters. These characters seem so real and not at all fabricated in any way. I found a little of myself inside each character in this story and found myself caring deeply about what happened next to each of them.

I found myself wishing the story would go on and on and my only complaint is that it ended too abruptly for me. However; if it were up to me I suppose there would have been no end.

As far as technicalities, the only distraction I had during the reading was one typo (page 17) and the repeated use of one word "sinewy". It is such an odd word, to see it at least 9 times in one book was a bit distracting to me. Then again, I may be just a little obsessive compulsive in my inability to ignore patterns. :)

I remained totally engaged with this book through the entire 8 hours it took for me to complete it. Cai Emmons constantly switched back and forth between second and third person voices... and I never really noticed it until 3/4 through the book. Even then it was so well done that I was not distracted by it at all which makes me wonder if that is how I was kept engaged.

I very much recommend this book and admire Cai Emmons as a writer. I sincerely appreciate the fact that I never felt manipulated as a reader, nor did I find anything in the book predictable. I anxiously await her next offering if there is one.

Paula

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent debut for an important new writer
Review: This book is disturbing and compelling in the very best way--despite the fact that Jana Thomas and her life, her story don't go down as smoothly as the best lemon meringue pie, it was good to the last crumb. Part medical thriller, part family saga, partly a chronicle of the complicated lives we live today, "His Mother's Son" is an impressive piece of work. Moreover, it touches the heart without making any obvious writerly attempts to do so.

I'm looking forward to more from Cai Emmons.

Rating:
Summary: Nastalia's Review
Review: This book was a wonderful book that kept my attention the whole time. Being that I took AP Biology this year, I connected alot of Biology terms in the book. I thought the story line was good, and it really showed a mother who cared for her son, maybe a little too much. The only thing i would change about this book would be the ending. I would have given the book a 4, but the ending kinda made me upset. To be frank, I hated the ending, but the whole book was really good and I would recomend it to anyone who reads. Cai Emmons is a great writter and I hope to read more of her books. She shows a lot of potential for becoming the next big writter. I hope, personally, she writes a book that follows this one up, becuase it kinda leaves you hanging at the end. All in all, i loved it!