The Whole World Over

Buy and Read This Book!

This book has been very enjoyable. I'm on the last 100 pages, and hate to get to the end.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Wonderful!

I absolutely adored this book. Wonderful characters, plot, writing style, and a gorgeous cover. The latter attracted my attention and the book did not disappoint. The characters were so believable and the storyline flowed seamlessly. I loved the way the characters lives intersected and also the thoughful way the author treated alternative lifestyles. This book would make a great gift for anyone who enjoys something other than brain candy.

Loved The Whole World Over

Julia Glass is a great storyteller. The World World Over is brillantly written. It is about the fragility of relationships and not taking anything for granted. This is also a good book for food lovers because Greenie is a baker. The Whole World Over is a book I would buy and read again. I would recommend it for book clubs.

julia glass

a pleasure

A feast of words and characters

This book was a pleasure to read for its use of language. You can "see" the different locals and emotions. There is no dramatic plot or conclusion, but an interwoven theme of living. The different viewpoints and many characters dance around life with its joys and sorrows. An amazingly satisfying slice of life. One reviewer said he would like to shake the characters but isn't that how it is in reality. Not a book strong on drama or intrigue but a vast pleasure to read.

A reviewer

One of the most beautifully written works I've read recently. It's a top-of-the-list favorite, right up there with Ann Pachett's Bel Canto. Glass provides her characters with generous inner lives and a past each must eventually come to terms with. She weaves her large cast, and their various stories, into a tapestry that stretches from NYC to Santa Fe. Over-arching all, 'the whole world over,' is the sky that provides a sense of connectedness, as well as uncontrollable fate. Things fall into and out of the sky, some beneficent, some not, but all altering lives. This is a gorgeous book that will stay with you for a long time.

Disappointing and .... annoying

Looking forward to this book, I found it terribly disappointing and the characters really annoying. There was nothing likable about any of them....I found myself wanting to shake them. It struck me that for a woman who supposedly wanted children, or at least a child, the heroine in the story was rather stiff and an unnatural mother reacting in an inhibited manner to her son. I did finish the book, but found it difficult and several times almost put it down for good.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Beautifully written, engaging characters

I would divide this book into 4 parts with each part being about 125 pages. The first 2 parts were very well written. I was deeply moved by the characters and the writing. I was engrossed in the characters and felt the book was fantastic. Around the 3rd part I felt it was getting a little bogged down. I was still enjoying it but the constant descriptions of the food Greenie prepared were beginning to bore me a little. I felt her relationship with Charlie was a little off kilter - I felt the connection between them was a little forced. I loved Walter's story all the way through. The ending was deeply moving and I read the last 125 pages in one sitting. Overall I think Julia Glass is a fantastic writer. She develops characters that readers can truly care about. I would highly recommend this book and her previous book as well. Also - the children's books she mentions thoughout the book are great too!

A Brilliant Read

Funny, deeply moving, captures the complexities of love and the nuances of relationships. The characters in this book are even more accessible and touchable than those found in Three Junes. Julie Glass excels at showing how unexpected/unplanned events can send anyone of us down a path we never intended to take, and the impact these events can have on our relationships.

A complex family drama

In Manhattan's West Village, Greenie Duquette runs a local basement bakery that provides pastries to neighborhood restaurants, Her close friend renowned restaurateur Walter, in between falling in love again, obtains Greenie a position as the pastry chef to the to the New Mexico governor. To the shock of her spouse, psychiatrist Dr. Alan Glazier, she accepts the position when it is offered to her.--------------- Greenie leaves Alan in New York and accompanied by their four-year-old son George travels to the Land of Enchantment. Meanwhile their nearly collapsed marriage is further deteriorated when gay bookseller Fenno McLeod, thirtyish amnesiac Saga, and her Uncle Marsden make demands especially on Alan who wonders why everyone demands his time except the woman he wishes would demand his time.-------------- This is a complex family drama in which Alan begins to learn what matters in life as he misses his family even as the demands on his time expand to somewhat fill the void. The cast is powerful and genuine while the estranged lead couple struggle thousands of miles apart over a year deciding what they want from life and each other culminating with the collapse of the Towers symbolizing everything to them. Readers will take immense delight with Julia Glass¿s strong insightful look at people stressed by life and not appreciating what they have.------------- Harriet Klausner

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