Book Details:
Book Title: In the context of Love by Linda K. Sienkiewicz
Category: Adult fiction, 270 pages
Genre: Women's fiction
Publisher: Buddhapuss Ink LLC
Release date: September 2015
Content Rating: R (This book contains profanity, violence, explicit sex scenes and mature themes.)
Book Description:
What makes us step back to examine the events and people that have shaped our lives? And what happens when what we discover leads to more questions?
Angelica Schirrick wonders how her life could have gotten so far off-track. With two children in tow, she begins a journey of self-discovery that leads her back home to Ohio. It pains her to remember the promise her future once held and the shattering revelations that derailed her life.
Can she face the failures and secrets of her past and move forward? Somehow she must learn to accept the violence of her beginning before she can be open to life, and a second chance at love.
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Praise for In the Context of Love
“Linda K. Sienkiewicz’s powerful and richly detailed debut novel is at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey. In the Context of Love should be required reading for all wayward teenage girls—and their mothers, too.” ~Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters.
“With tenderness, but without blinking, Linda K. Sienkiewicz turns her eye on the predator-prey savannah of the young and still somehow hopeful.” ~ Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of the #1 NY Times Bestseller, Deep End of the Ocean
“Absorbing, heartbreaking, compulsively-readable and insightful, Linda Sienkiewicz’s In the Context of Love casts a hypnotic spell. This is storytelling at its best.” ~ Lewis Robinson, author of the critically acclaimed, Officer Friendly: and Other Stories, and Water Dogs
My Review:
Reviewed by Laura Fabiani
In the Context of Love is a stunning debut; a coming-of-age story that will make readers experience a gamut of emotions, from the overpowering joy of first love to heartbreak and finally redemption.
The story is told by Angelica as a woman with two children who is now at a crossroad in her life. She tells the story as if reminiscing to Jozsef Vadas, Hungarian heartthrob, the boy she fell in love with in high school. I simply loved Sienkiewicz's storytelling technique because it built anticipation, foreboding and hope as Angelica recounts all that has happened to her from the day she met a beautiful boy who opened up her sheltered life.
But Angelica loses Joe and then dark secrets of her family's past take Angelica for a whirlwind downward spin. Suffering the loss of her first love and her identity, Angelica falls hard into a life of self-loathing with feelings of worthlessness that lead her into promiscuity, drugs and alcohol. I must admit, as a parent, these candid feelings of a teen girl who staggers into womanhood in such a gritty way was painful to read.
The author infuses her writing with beautiful metaphors which balances out the crude language from some characters in other scenes. She easily immerses the reader into the culture of 1970s in a small town of America. But best of all the author builds believable characters and explores family dynamics through the changing eyes of a scarred teen as she learns to navigate through life and finally find peace with herself.
This is a story that explores what happens when a young person experiences emotional heartbreak and must learn to deal with it alone. The raw honest emotions evoke compassion even as the reader cringes at some of the bad decisions Angelica made. It takes talent to bring this out in literature. Linda K. Sienkiewicz has written an unforgettable tale, one that will make you reminisce your own first love and all its drama, and makes parents realize how vulnerable teen girls are. It's impossible to walk away untouched from such a story.
Book Trailer:
In the Context of Love | Book Trailer from Linda Sienkiewicz on Vimeo.
Meet the author:
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a published poet and fiction writer, cynical optimist, fan of corgis, tea drinker, and wine lover from Michigan. Her poetry, short stories, and art have been published in more than fifty literary journals, including Prairie Schooner, Clackamas Literary Review, Spoon River, and Permafrost.
She received a poetry chapbook award from Bottom Dog Press, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Linda lives with her husband in southeast Michigan, where they spoil their grandchildren and then send them back home.
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Laura, thank you for taking the time to read In the Context of Love, and for writing such an introspective and insightful review. Thanks for all you do for writers and for readers!
ReplyDeleteLinda
It's my absolute pleasure, Linda! You are a talented writer, and I was so absorbed by your story. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI enjoyed your review. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Heidi. I appreciate your comment.
DeleteI want to read this book because it got such great reviews.
ReplyDelete