Review of A Mingled Yarn

[Nichol Lee Jackson]

[Following is a volunteer review of "A Mingled Yarn" by Louise Williams.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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A Mingled Yarn by Louise Williams is a moving story about an orphan named Liza and life with her dead mother's family. It is intended for young and mature adult audiences. There is some borderline profanity, graphic sexual content, and sporadic typos throughout the novel.

The rollercoaster ride, emotionally draining world of the Walsh family begins in the 1950s. This very loving couple and their young children adopt Liza, whose mother died during childbirth. Her mother's sister, Fiona Walsh, acts as her real mother and does not know who Liza's father is. With very touching detail and narration, the author shows protective interaction between the characters at all stages of life. The romantic side is painfully twisted. Very typical of a pre-teen novel, most of the subject is over boys. The story becomes very personal and has several heartbreaking moments that are strongly related to culture changes in the mid-century during the Vietnam War. The priority for the Walshes is to be good role models. Their children go through normal periods of rebellion and just when things are starting to settle down, another catastrophe occurs. It is an ongoing soap opera.

Books like these are addictive. I gave it four out of five stars because it had some typos and grammatical errors. The sensitive style easily fools the reader into each character's personal struggle. The plot twists are solid hooks that force their characters into accepting life's hard terms. Besides some minor editing problems- several paragraphs got repeated, it was a very special, dramatic piece of work. You can easily see this being made into a play or movie. In fact, it sounds like a spinoff of Steel Magnolias with tons of Sally Fields and actors like Mickey Rourke carrying on with their unexpected, short, tragic lives and romanticized values. A person who is driven to tears will appreciate this book.

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A Mingled Yarn
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