Review of Kalayla
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Browniee Da Sylva
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- Latest Review: Kalayla by Jeannie Nicholas
Review of Kalayla
[Following is a volunteer review of "Kalayla" by Jeannie Nicholas.]
When her father is killed in a car race crash, her mother sinks into a quagmire as she struggles to come to grips with the hand they've been dealt by the sisters of fate and Kalayla's life as she knows it comes to a grinding halt. She's tossed into a turbulent whirlwind and finds herself a most unwilling participant to an indeed dramatic play out of lies and deceit. There's her mother who's more confused than anything else as she stumbles through the new realities of single parenthood. She's got some secrets...but what are they? There's the old lady who lives across the hall. She only wears black, she seems to be nursing some secrets of her own and she seems to have taken an interest in Kalayla...but why? They're all tossed into the mix. The past has come calling and the hour of reckoning is nigh.
Kalayla as written by Jeannie Nicholas tells, with each turn of its pages, the tale of a little girl as she struggles to find her place in the world she's been so unpleasantly dumped into. Her world, as she knew it, has been violently rocked by pain and loss. She's a little lost, a little troubled and she's desperate to find that niche into which she fits. Eventually she finds what she's been looking for and it's everything she's never hoped for. The book has a good plot outline that has family, love, hurt, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption as the central focuses with the selective backdrops of race and racial prejudices, marriage and marital abuse, family ties and family severances. I particularly enjoyed the privilege of watching the story unfold in a rare three-dimensional focus which allowed me to see through the points of views of Kalayla herself, her mother, Maureen and "that crabby old lady" Lena. The effect was a certain shifting focus that allowed me to see as each saw, feel as each felt and experience as each experienced as I was carried along on the rollercoaster ride. Also worthy of note is the unique writing form employed by Jeannie Nicholas, where certain words written in all caps had the pleasant effect of giving the story's narrative certain emotional nuances and emphasis which I imagine was the general idea and which were very well appreciated.
As good as the story's plot outline was, I realized that the narrative delivery could have done with a bit more polishing and finessing in certain areas, such as who revealed to Kalayla whom Kieran's grandfather was, the story's ending itself and as well as the narrative of the story from Kalayla's own point of view as I found the narrative delivery of quite a lot of her musings truly did not really reflect what one would consider to be the thought processes of a child of her age bracket. All in all, the story had a number of sharp edges that poked out awkwardly and that really could use some fine tuning.
I would rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars owing to its good plot outline and its appreciatively unique delivery style and with the deduction of a star owing to the not so well smoothed out angles to the storyline.
I recommend this book to the members of the younger reading audiences who fall into the teenage bracket as I believe they would be able to find a thing or two to relate to in Kalayla's story.
******
Kalayla
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
When her father is killed in a car race crash, her mother sinks into a quagmire as she struggles to come to grips with the hand they've been dealt by the sisters of fate and Kalayla's life as she knows it comes to a grinding halt. She's tossed into a turbulent whirlwind and finds herself a most unwilling participant to an indeed dramatic play out of lies and deceit. There's her mother who's more confused than anything else as she stumbles through the new realities of single parenthood. She's got some secrets...but what are they? There's the old lady who lives across the hall. She only wears black, she seems to be nursing some secrets of her own and she seems to have taken an interest in Kalayla...but why? They're all tossed into the mix. The past has come calling and the hour of reckoning is nigh.
Kalayla as written by Jeannie Nicholas tells, with each turn of its pages, the tale of a little girl as she struggles to find her place in the world she's been so unpleasantly dumped into. Her world, as she knew it, has been violently rocked by pain and loss. She's a little lost, a little troubled and she's desperate to find that niche into which she fits. Eventually she finds what she's been looking for and it's everything she's never hoped for. The book has a good plot outline that has family, love, hurt, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption as the central focuses with the selective backdrops of race and racial prejudices, marriage and marital abuse, family ties and family severances. I particularly enjoyed the privilege of watching the story unfold in a rare three-dimensional focus which allowed me to see through the points of views of Kalayla herself, her mother, Maureen and "that crabby old lady" Lena. The effect was a certain shifting focus that allowed me to see as each saw, feel as each felt and experience as each experienced as I was carried along on the rollercoaster ride. Also worthy of note is the unique writing form employed by Jeannie Nicholas, where certain words written in all caps had the pleasant effect of giving the story's narrative certain emotional nuances and emphasis which I imagine was the general idea and which were very well appreciated.
As good as the story's plot outline was, I realized that the narrative delivery could have done with a bit more polishing and finessing in certain areas, such as who revealed to Kalayla whom Kieran's grandfather was, the story's ending itself and as well as the narrative of the story from Kalayla's own point of view as I found the narrative delivery of quite a lot of her musings truly did not really reflect what one would consider to be the thought processes of a child of her age bracket. All in all, the story had a number of sharp edges that poked out awkwardly and that really could use some fine tuning.
I would rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars owing to its good plot outline and its appreciatively unique delivery style and with the deduction of a star owing to the not so well smoothed out angles to the storyline.
I recommend this book to the members of the younger reading audiences who fall into the teenage bracket as I believe they would be able to find a thing or two to relate to in Kalayla's story.
******
Kalayla
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Kalayla by Jeannie Nicholas
