Helpful Score: 6
Isn't that just a great title? And for me, what a very beautiful story.
It didn't start all that fast, an old woman reminiscing, going back to her pre-war girlhood in Virginia. Just talking. She was beginning to lose me. And then suddenly I was loathe to put the book down, kept going back to it. Why? I can't say, for just like A Virtuous Woman, there seemed to be no plot. No action. No showing, just telling. But I am finding that with so much literary fiction nowadays. At least that which I am reading.
At one point, the book started bringing to mind The Oldest Living Confederate Widow. And that was before we reached the war. And that sense grew stronger as I read to the end of the book. Strange, since OLCW was full of action and this wasn't, and OLCW was huge and this wasn't.
Being dramatic here, I know, but reading the last page of On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon just took my breath away.
It didn't start all that fast, an old woman reminiscing, going back to her pre-war girlhood in Virginia. Just talking. She was beginning to lose me. And then suddenly I was loathe to put the book down, kept going back to it. Why? I can't say, for just like A Virtuous Woman, there seemed to be no plot. No action. No showing, just telling. But I am finding that with so much literary fiction nowadays. At least that which I am reading.
At one point, the book started bringing to mind The Oldest Living Confederate Widow. And that was before we reached the war. And that sense grew stronger as I read to the end of the book. Strange, since OLCW was full of action and this wasn't, and OLCW was huge and this wasn't.
Being dramatic here, I know, but reading the last page of On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon just took my breath away.
Helpful Score: 1
My favorite Kaye Gibbons book. This is Emma's story of life before and mostly during the Civil War. She tells us how her life was shaped by her abusive father and her loving mother in a household runned by slaves. Her escape from this environment and life after her marriage was spent suffering through the war with her doctor husband, sacrificing for the injured troops they nursed and for those they buried. A very compelling story.
Helpful Score: 1
Slow start, but interesting story told well.
Helpful Score: 1
This is a wonderful book about the South - or more particularly, the women of the South who have managed to live through the Civil War.It is told in 1900, on what the main character suspects may be her last day.
Another Kay Gibbons gem. She can't go wrong and she gets me interested right away!
well written!
This book started out slow for me, but I'm glad I kept reading. It is an interesting story, and very moving at times.
Only once in awhile do I want to keep a book---this is one of then---but there are so many more to read yet during my life time. This book is very worthy of reading a few more time. It is such a lovely story, about a southern woman who tells her story, while believing it is her last afternoon to live. The ending ---well get out the tissues--and the lessons you will learn are heavenly. Lovely lovely book.
This book really brought home the life of a Southern girl/woman from her pampered but cruel upbringing thru her life as the wife of a surgeon from the North and the atrocities that both sides went through during the Civil War and the periods before and after. It really brings home the truth of it all and what women's lives were really like.
This little book is a real treasure. The writing is beautifully done and done in the style of the l9th century. One has to work at reading this book for that reason. Don't rush your reading. If you do you will find yourself having to re-read whole pages. The story involves the life of a young woman in the Civil War era who is born to priviledge but must suffer the intolerable behavior of her father, a self-made wealthy plantation owner. This is a beautiful picture of the South and slavery during the l800's. I recommend this book to anyone. It gives the reader a good picture of slavery in the pre-Civil War era. Genny
Kay Gibbons never disappoints and this is one of my favorites
How Southern women suffered and endured during the civil war, and one woman reached out to the newly-freed slaves to teach them to read.
I loved this book. The depth of the characters and the accurate portrayal of life in the south during the Civil War made this a book that I will remember forever.
Enjoyed this fictional story during the Civil War.
Though life during the Civil War is the backdrop of this story it is the characters who will grab you from first page to last. Strong and weak ones, loveable and hateful ones. Heroes, heroines, victims.
Like all other books I have read by Kaye Gibbons, this is a pleasant and easy read. She has a real eye and ear for characters.
This was recommended to me, but I could not read it. It was very difficult for me to get into, and I never finished it.
