Audiobook14 hours
All She Ever Wanted
Written by Lynn Austin
Narrated by Linda Stephens
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
A three-time Christy Award winner, Lynn Austin crafts rousing tales of hope and redemption. All She Ever Wanted stars Kathleen Seymour, a woman who seems to have it all, though she hides a dark family secret. To her horror, everything comes crashing down when she loses her job and her daughter is caught shoplifting. Desperate to regain control over her life, Kathleen returns to her estranged family to mend her severely broken relationships before it is too late. "[A] brilliant novel about love, forgiveness, suffering, and the importance of resisting the temptation to run away when things get tough."-Christian Book Previews.com
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Reviews for All She Ever Wanted
Rating: 4.160919540229885 out of 5 stars
4/5
87 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A good book and plot with gospel truth. Thank you
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We’ve all thought about, planned out, or maybe even gone through with the act of, running away. Usually it’s short lived, maybe down the block or an overnight with a friend. But Lynn Austin’s characters run away for decades, even lifetimes, one generation after another. Each leaves for a good, but secret reason. We get to follow the powerful interwoven stories across the decades and relive their passion, pain and life experiences.
There are no sappy platitudes or easy outs. It’s a sincere family voyage of life, in which the flattery, lies and deception of others lose their power when light eventually and slowly exposes the truth and competes the family puzzle. A powerful read. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As usual-another excellent book by Lynn Austin! Very interesting! Loved it!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lynn Austin never disappoints! This was a beautiful story that I won’t soon forget.❤️
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a story that grabbed my attention and held it all the way through. You have to keep your focus though, because it switches back and forth to the present time and then takes you back to the past and helps you understand the main character and the reasons for why her grandmother, Fiona, her mother, Eleanor, and herself had struggles in their life. It is not a feel good, romantic novel, but a very well told story of the lives of three generations of women, and understanding all they went through.Kathleen fled her home 35 years ago, running from poverty and shame. An invitation to go back to her hometown is initially cast into the trash. But after a huge disagreement with her daughter and a failure to communicate with her, her husband suggests that Kathleen and her daughter, Joelle, take the road trip and get to know one another. So begins the story; first Kathleen will have time to tell Joelle her story and the sad life she once lived. Then others will begin to weave the story behind Kathleen's mother and then Kathleen's grandmother. It was all very well written and kept me constantly keeping each lady separate, but recognizing how they all affected one another.I had a hard time putting this story down once I began. It is a sad story really, but I felt the truth that Kathleen's father shared at the end of the book showed how Christ can truly change a person and the bitterness and sadness can be replaced with the peace that comes from knowing Him! Well done Lynn Austin.
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- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Kathleen Seymour's relationship with her teenage daughter, Joelle, is at a breaking point. Kathleen is afraid that Joelle will leave home and never return, just like several generations of the women in Kathleen's family. Will learning about each woman's story help Kathleen and Joelle repair their relationship, or will it drive them farther apart?This book reminds me of an old country song, You Never Even Called Me By My Name. As the supposedly-perfect song seems to come to an end, performer David Allan Coe protests that it's not the perfect country song because there's been no mention of Mama, trains, pickup trucks, prison, or getting drunk. The last verse takes care of these omissions. It starts "I was drunk the day my Mom got out of prison..." This book has the same feel. It's like the author took a chronology of the 20th century and made a list of all the significant events she wanted to include: Irish immigrants, New York tenements, sweatshops, Prohibition, speakeasies, Black Tuesday, the Depression, mobsters, Communism, World War II, factories, USO dances, the Cold War/fallout shelters, the Kennedy assassination. (There are also Mamas, prisons, and people getting drunk, but I don't remember any mention of trains or pickup trucks.) Take this paragraph, for example:Even at the tender age of nine, she had already perfected the art of making a grand entrance. She waved her hand like Mamie Eisenhower and called out, "Hello-oo, I'm here-ere," as if we had been holding our breath, waiting for her to arrive. You would have thought she was Elvis Presley the way the other girls gathered around her. May and I had never been in the same class before, but the rest of the kids already knew that if a Hayworth was your classmate, you could expect a small truckload of treats at all the class parties. The Hayworths were the richest family in town. May's brother, Ron, who was two years older than May, ruled the playground the way Jimmy Hoffa ruled the Teamsters.Several of the characters behaved either inconsistently or illogically. The characters didn't feel like people in their own right, but like vehicles to convey an evangelistic message. It seems that the author doesn't want the reader to miss the message, so it's explicitly stated. Unfortunately, by choosing to "tell" rather than "show", the author tells a story that most readers will quickly forget rather than one that will leave a lasting impression.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5really good book!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plot Summary: What happens, When & Where, Central Characters, Major ConflictsKathleen doesn't like to talk about her past. But a confrontation with her daughter and an invitation from her estranged sister force her to open up about her background. As she and her daughter travel to the New York town where she grew up, she tells her about what it was like to grow up in extreme poverty, with a dad who was a thief and a mother who was chronically depressed and ill. Kathleen never wanted to visit the places and people that caused her so much pain again. But returning to her hometown gives her a chance to learn the truth about Eleanor, her once vibrant mother, and Fiona, the grandmother she barely knew. Style Characterisics: Pacing, clarity, structure, narrative devices, etc.Shifts from Kathleen's point of view to those of her mother's best friend, her grandmother, her uncle, and her mother. The story unfolds slowy, with pieces gradually falling into place. Sometimes the way the characters talk is too much like the author's own detailed way of describing the story--the switchining points of view while a character is supposed to be telling their story leaves you wondering if they really told it the way the author told it or more like the way people talk. So the dialogue seems unrealistic at times. But the characters and the lessons they learn are meaningful and the places and situations so well described that it is easy to get caught up in the story. How Good is it?A strong tale exloring the consequences of the decisions made by 3 generations of women.