Careful Mistakes

By Joyce Mandeville

Book Overview

Jilly, a 40-something, widowed mother finds out her daughter is pregnant on the day that her father dies. Wondering where Oprah is when you need her, Jilly battles with her mother-in-law, her lover... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316879991
• ISBN13: 9780316879996
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An exquisite novel of mothers and daughters, life and love.

A Twist of Light is a beautifully paced, multi-layered novel of mothers and daughters, life and love, light and dark. In this second novel, Mandeville once again holds the reader captive, laughing aloud, and hoping for the best even as the tears begin to flow. This juicy read twists and turns as only real life can do. Mandeville's rendering of the sixties in California's Central Valley is a superb portrait, reminiscent of Steinbeck's take on the Salinas Valley and no less convincing. She takes her main charachter, Lizzy, just as convincingly to the UK, the author's current home, where Lizzy's life is every bit as gracious and predictable as it was mean and chaotic in California. This is a good read. It leaves the dust of the Central Valley on the tongue and salt tears on the chin. It left me deeply moved and curiously satisfied. It left me wanting more out of Joyce Mandeville.

A wonderful, warm, witty novel.

This is one book where the book jacket delivers on the promises. The natural crises of life and death do seem like a good time. The book opens with a death bed scene with snapshots from life that are both amusing in their perceptive observation of family sub-text conversation, and outright funny. Not that the subjects are taken lightly- death, religion, abortion are serious topics. But here they are explored in a wonderful life-affirming way. This book is neither fluffy, or stuffy; neither light, or heavy. Mandeville captures the real stuff of women's lives, the turning point events, and gives them a thorough yet enjoyable exploration. I recommend Careful Mistakes highly

Catcher in the Rye for the harmone replacement treatment set

A moving and enduring book of a woman's relationship with her family, their faith and herself. Beautiful in every way. A perfect gem of a book. Funny, moving and rich with life. Every woman over 35 and under should read it