Kirjailijakuva

Wendy James (1) (1966–)

Teoksen The golden child tekijä

Katso täsmennyssivulta muut tekijät, joiden nimi on Wendy James.

9 teosta 197 jäsentä 34 arvostelua

Tekijän teokset

The golden child (2017) 66 kappaletta
Where have you been? (2010) 24 kappaletta
The Accusation (2019) 22 kappaletta
The Lost Girls (2014) 21 kappaletta
The mistake (2012) 17 kappaletta
The Steele diaries (2008) 16 kappaletta
Why She Loves Him (2009) 6 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Kanoninen nimi
James, Wendy
Syntymäaika
1966
Sukupuoli
female
Kansalaisuus
Australia
Syntymäpaikka
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Asuinpaikat
Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

I think it had a lot of potential but it was kind of tacky a lot of the time and the characters were pretty 2-dimensional. I liked the ending but it dragged on a little bit. Honestly, the whole novel dragged on. I kept falling asleep reading it. With more character depth, fewer blog/social media posts, more concision, and maybe some more character development or a different way of presenting the plot, it could be really good. So like, I wouldn't recommend the book but like, if I saw someone in Barnes and Noble checking it out, I wouldn't go out of my way to stop them (which I've done before to a NYT best-seller so that's saying something I guess)… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
ninagl | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jan 7, 2023 |
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Suzannah is the new caregiver for her mother, Mary who suffers from dementia as well as a drama teacher who is new to her area. At the same time a young girl, Ellie, goes missing and manages to escape her abductors - a middle-aged woman and her insane mother. Soon Suzannah is arrested due to the girl's accusations and a wealth of DNA evidence found on her property. Is she guilty of the unimaginable - kidnapping of a teenager?

While the storyline was different from any other I had read I still did not feel drawn to the characters or care about them. It was interesting to watch the path the author went down to cover the plot twist, I just didn't feel attached to the story and only finished it for the sake of finishing it.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
Micareads | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Jun 21, 2022 |
Middle aged Suzannah Wells, once the star of a soapie on Australian television, has come to a small country town in Victoria to teach drama at a local high school. She has bought an old house on the edge of town, bringing with her her elderly mother Mary who has dementia. She and her mother have few friends in the town, and her mother has a carer drop in three days a week while Suzannah is at work.

But their relatively comfortable life is shattered when Ellie Canning tells the police that she has been imprisoned for three weeks in the cellar of Suzannah's house. Suzannah can't work out why Ellie is telling such patent lies. What does she hope to gain by it?

The story results from a number of narrative sources: Suzannah herself, transcripts from interviews held with Ellie for a documentary series, and a friend of Suzannah's called Honor who eventually takes Ellie under her wing. The story begins in August 2018 when a local farmer finds Ellie in a derelict hut on his property, and continues into 2019.

It was only when I was talking to a friend about the plot of this book, that she told me that it was very similar to that of a book that she had recently read. I researched the name of the author that she gave me, and I found there was indeed a connection. And then confirmation came at the beginning of Part Three. And then in an Author Note at the end came indeed the final confirmation of what my Google research had implied. I realised too that there had been a quite major hint in the body of the novel, but until my friend told me of the similarity, I hadn't realised the significance.

But I'm not going to spoil the "story" for you - rather leaving it for you to discover for yourself.
… (lisätietoja)
½
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
smik | 3 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Feb 25, 2020 |
The Golden Child by Wendy James is a compelling novel with a socially relevant storyline.

Beth Mahony is an Australian ex-pat living in New Jersey with her husband Dan and their two daughters, fourteen year old Lucy and twelve year old Charlotte "Charlie". Beth is a very involved stay-at-home mom who also blogs about her experiences with her family and living far from "home". Beth is shocked when Dan informs her a job opportunity means they are moving back to Australia. The timing turns out to be rather fortuitous since Charlie has landed in a bit of trouble at school after an "initiation" rite with her group of friends goes wrong. She is the ringleader of the group and all fingers point to Charlie as being the instigator of the prank that landed a classmate in the hospital. As the Mahony family uneasily settles in their new life, Charlotte is once again at the center of a serious incident in which musically gifted but socially awkward Sophie Pennington attempts to take her own life after she is the victim of bullying at school and on line.

Beth is surprised at the difficulty she is having settling in after their move. She remains out of sync as she tries to organize renovations on their house along with mothering duties. She is delighted by her burgeoning friendship with Sophie's mum, Andi, but Beth remains strangely dissatisfied with her new life. Until their move back to Australia, Beth has been content to not work outside the home, but that quickly changes after their move. At her mother's urging, she contacts a childhood friend's brother who is in the early stages of running for political office. Happy with her part-time job, Beth is dismayed at the growing distance between herself and her daughters as they spend more time in their rooms than with the family.

After struggling with infertility for ten years, Andi and her husband Steve are new parents for the second time. Unlike her experiences with Sophie, young Gus is an easy baby and she is enjoying bonding with the little guy. With the demands of new baby, Andi does not have as much time for her daughter but she does make a concerted effort to help Sophie become friends with Charlotte. It is not until Sophie's desperate act that Andi becomes aware of the horrible bullying at the hands of Charlotte and her classmates.

Charlotte and Lucy are as different as night and day. Lucy is content to fly under the radar and she has a small, but close-knit circle of friends. She is quiet, unassuming and never gives Beth any reason to worry about her. Charlotte, on the other hand, is eager to be in the limelight and she wants to be friends with most popular girls in their new school. Quickly realizing that spending time with Sophie will socially destroy her, Charlotte ignores her at school yet still remains her friend in private.

Despite being a bit slow-paced, The Golden Child is an engrossing peek into the world of mean girls and bullying. Shifting view points, blog posts, an anonymous website and social media offer an insightful view into the various characters' lives as the bullying attacks on Sophie intensify. The storyline is topical and extends beyond the bullying as both Beth and Andi wrestle with parental guilt once the bullying is exposed. Wendy James brings this character-driven novel to an unexpected and twist-filled conclusion.
… (lisätietoja)
 
Merkitty asiattomaksi
kbranfield | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Feb 3, 2020 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
9
Jäseniä
197
Suosituimmuussija
#111,410
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.7
Kirja-arvosteluja
34
ISBN:t
122

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