Book Tour & Review: Margaret From Maine by Joseph Monninger
The end of Maine Guardsman Sgt. Thomas Kennedy’s conscious life is ushered in by a flash of light on a plain in Afghanistan. While he languishes in a veterans’ hospital, Thomas’s devoted wife, Margaret, is raising their son on a dairy farm in rural Maine. She receives an invitation to Washington, DC, to meet the President of the United States as he signs a bill in support of wounded veterans with war veteran and West Point graduate Charlie King as her appointed escort. Charlie and Margaret’s shared circumstances inspire them to confide in one another. Suddenly, the pair creates a private world all their own, leaving the effects of war behind them. Margaret’s vows to her husband linger, raising a series of harrowing choice.
Review: I wanted to love this book. Truly I did. And although it had its share of positives and negatives, the end result was that I liked it. Sort of.
Lets start with the Negative Points: The way the characters' speech was formatted, it was often hard to follow who was saying what. Instead of being formatted the way we normally see dialog;
"One person's speech here"
"And the response here"
Margaret From Maine was formatted with "One person's speech here" "And the response here". I found myself having to re-read entire sections in order to try and figure out who was supposed to be saying what.
I also found myself making faces throughout most of this book as I just don't believe the characters (Margaret especially for most of the book and her husband Thomas in the beginning) had reactions that were true to life. Without giving away spoilers, all I can say is certain scenes of this book really made me mad. I also didn't care for the fact that Margaret and Charlie didn't seem to be all that conflicted about what they were doing, even though she was still a married woman. Perhaps the fact that I am a Veteran's Wife has something to do with it, but I think women in general will find it a bit hard to believe.
Now lets discuss the Positive Points: Mr.Monniger possesses a very special talent of being able to write in a way that appeals to the reader's senses. While reading, you can almost smell the lilacs in bloom, or the smells of cows on a farm. There was also a very sweet, innocent quality to Margaret's son Gordon with his toy soldiers (especially his "saw-chuck" soldier) that is appealing to a reader like myself. I will say that the ending was extremely well-written and without a doubt the most significant part of the book.
All of that being taken into consideration, I don't feel that this book was written for someone like me, but I would recommend it to someone that doesn't mind the overly mushy, sugar-sweet kind of love stories.
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About the Author:
Joseph Monninger is the author of Eternal on the Water and The World as We Know It, as well as several award-winning young-adult novels. A professor of English literature, he lives in New Hampshire.Want to learn more? You can find out via: The Author's Website, Facebook & Twitter
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