Review: Mixed Feelings
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 29, 2012
When I read the synopsis of A DIARY’S HOUSE, I thought it was going to be a realistic story about the Cherokee Indians, their legends, and the people that knew them.  Although there was a beautiful love story that wove its way throughout the novel, I was distracted by the hodgepodge of subplots involving ghosts, talking trees, pirates, revenge, and growing up, all of which came together at the end, the very end!Most of the characters were not believable, especially the children who were the major characters.  They were supposed to be 11 or 12 years old, I think, but they were much too mature for their age.  They thought, behaved and spoke like adults in most of their incredible adventures, yet some of their actions and thoughts were very childlike.  Annabelle, for example, referred to as a beautiful little girl, wanted a doll and to learn how to read, and Landon, a young boy, wanted to play in the mountains and ride his favorite horse, but both spoke of undying love for each other.  I kept wondering how old are these children supposed to be?Shelly, the grandmother, who had so much wisdom and so many secrets, was my favorite character.  She most often embodied the beauty and truth of the novel.The story was too long to hold my interest most of the time due to the redundancy of the descriptions and infinite details.  Despite the many grammatical/typo errors that I didn’t believe were intentional to create colloquial color, the author has an exceptional sense for figurative language, especially imagery, but the reading becomes tedious when he “makes tales out of the smallest of events to broaden the story.”  He is, however, a master storyteller.