Title: Faithful
Author: Alice Hoffman
ISBN: 9781476799209
No. of Pages: 288
Genre: Literary Fiction
Origins: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: 1 November 2016
Synopsis:
“Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.
What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful
is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night. Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful
is a roadmap.”
My Thoughts: Guilt is a powerful emotion. It cripples a person mentally and physically. It tears apart a person’s self-esteem much more harshly than any bully. It is insidious and difficult to ignore. It has the power to bring a person to the edge and beyond.
In the opening pages of Faithful
Faithful
The truly important thing about Shelby is the fact that she is the epitome of faking it until you make it. It takes her most of the novel to recognize that she is worthy of anyone’s love or professional accolades, something everyone else figures out very early on in the story. However, even though she does not believe she is worthy, she still acts like she does. She dresses for the role she has been given even though she does not agree that it is hers to have. She never thinks herself worth the trouble, but she never gives in to her desire to give up entirely either.
Faithful
BOTTOM LINE: A must-read for anyone looking for a little hope in their lives.