i really like this, but am due for a re-read, because I can't remember exactly what i liked about it, just that i did like it...
[update]: oh good lord - claire and i saw haven kimmel read last night, which was glorious. I have a total girl-crush on anyone who talk about the eschatology of john ashcroft one minute, and the next minute tell a hilarious anecdote about being on the morning show and trying to make katie couric look smart. which brings me to this book (which is now autographed "To Cat from the Flat Green Fields of Indiana - Haven Kimmel") - this book contains some of the most heartbreaking, character-building lines ever. This is one of my favorites: "This was a mystery to Cassie, how the true nature of a person can be so thoroughly concealed in youth that he does humiliating things. It meant Cassie herself could do them, and later someone would hold out the offending object - a dress, a party favor, an unsent letter - and convict her." please read it - you won't regret it!

I'm such a fan of Haven Kimmel's writing, she has a way of creating super interesting characters. This book left me with some questions and some frustrations, so it's more like 3.5 stars. I actually ended up liking it more after I read the author's Q&A part at the end. Go figure.

It's a good book - but not her best book. In my opinion, that's _The SOlace of Leaving Early_. There are a lot of stereotypical characters but still a very good story.

This was one of the very few books that I was not able to finish. Not because it's awful, or poorly written...actually, I thought it was written quite well, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. It's just that I didn't get it. After getting more than halfway through this book I realized...I didn't care about anyone of the characters, I didn't care what happened to them, didn't fully understand who they were, nothing at all. I skimmed the last 1/3 of the book just to see if it would get a little more exciting...it never did.

Cassie was likable enough, but I found her to be too hard and empty, and her sister Belle obviously had some serious problems, but what they were I couldn't tell you. And Puck and Emmy...what a bizarre pair. What it comes down to is this book just wasn't for me. The reading is extremely choppy, and difficult to follow in some places. What I got wasn't quite what I expected when I started reading. It's not that I don't recommend the book, I personally didn't take to it, but I really like Haven Kimmel, and have high hopes for the next book of hers I pick up.

This is a novel you can sink your teeth into! The language is so meaty and juicy. A moving story and sympathetic lead character. I highly recommend it!

Great line:

"You don’t know how to walk, forget it, the world wants nothing to do with you; your genes get lost, and there go all your bright-eyed babies.”

Read this once for the details of the story and once again to savor the author's ability to make me weak in the knees and soft in the belly by word choice and phrasing. She's a poet. I <3 her.

The books that I’ve read by Haven Kimmel run the gamut between laugh out loud funny, break your heart poignant and I loved this book but I’m not 100% why. “Something Rising (Light and Swift)” was yet another different kind of book. It was beautiful in a brittle, heartbreaking way.

Cassie, the main character, is a girl, then a woman who is desperately and silently trying to hang on to those small and uncommon types of love that she has. Jimmy – her father, Laura – her mother, and Belle – her sister, give her very little love or affection in the traditional sense of the words. “Cassie was, at ten, a child who would have to learn to look away.”

She desperately loves her father despite being abandoned by him for much of her life. Her mother’s physical presence is a constant, yet Cassie knows very little about her. All through her life, it seems she is waiting for her father, so like her in spirit, to be part of her life, and for her mother, so unlike her, to tell her about her life.

Finally, once their lives start to change dramatically, Cassie gets part of what she wants as she starts to learn about the mystery that is her mother, Laura.

“…when you were three and Belle was five, I decided to leave your father, and Shirley was the first person I went to.” Cassie rubbed her forehead. How could she ever explain to Laura that hearing this story still caused a shimmer in her belly, she was still afraid that Jimmy and she’d lose her family so long after he’d left and she’d lost?”

Cassie’s feeling about her family – mother, father and sister are so conflicted, and so precisely written that she is one of the most real and knowable characters that I’ve read about in a long while.

“Cassie’s breath quickened, and she could hear her heartbeat. Jimmy still evoked elation and dread – she wanted to run to him before he got away, and she wanted to run past him and have it over with.”

She says very little throughout the book, but she feels so much – the reader is given a chance to know her more than she probably knows herself. Some of the choices she makes evoked a sense of protection in me…as if she was taking the first steps towards the paths of her parents and I wanted to warn her off. There was ferocity to Cassie that made me both fear for her and admire her.

I will always look forward to Haven Kimmel’s books – I won’t know what type of book to expect but I am sure it will be an amazing experience.

This is a superb book. My chicklitmeistress presents a coming of age story about a girl who makes money playing pool, like her father, in rural Indiana (of course). Powerful characters, enough surprises, nice resolution, read it.