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Book of Mercy edition by Sherry Roberts Literature Fiction eBooks

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Book of Mercy edition by Sherry Roberts Literature Fiction eBooks

Antigone lives in a world separated by severe dyslexia from those of us who find pleasure in books, a secret she has shamefully concealed for many years. When the leader of the local wealthy, influential ladies' club uses her influence to start banning books from the school library, Antigone stands up to her at great personal and financial cost.
I connected with this book on many levels. As a reader, I am aware of and abhor the often-successful campaigns to ban books, and have seen the desecration of library books. I have also studied and worked in the field of adult illiteracy and know that the adult illiterate often goes to great lengths to hide his or her illiteracy because the illiterate is often considered stupid rather than handicapped. The inability to read is highly stressful and frustrating in today's world. Antigone vents this frustration by driving hard and fast with the wind in her hair and the car radio blaring, much to the distress of her husband and friends.
The author weaves some very serious topics into an interesting tale peopled with quirky, lovable characters, and a few equally quirky, unlovable characters. The book is well written, well edited, and very entertaining.


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Book of Mercy edition by Sherry Roberts Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews

This novel was a breath of fresh air, such a creative story and with so many captivating characters.
The main Character Antigone suffers from severe Dyslexia, but she was also brought up by book lovers who instilled a love for books in her despite her frustrations with reading. She, Antigone is also a collector of strays whether they are animal or human and because of this we have a wonderful eclectic group of people, to read about.
The story takes place in a small town in North Carolina, where certain members of a book group want to ban certain books from there school library.
The author said that while she was writing the book, it lost its fire for awhile until her daughter came home from High School one day saying that they, the school was banning books, and the embers for her story were re-ignited, and what a fun and complex story she tells.
It tackles everything from censorship to family values, to what is important in life. A great read.
Book of Mercy was a few hours of sheer pleasure. As a retired school library media specialist who now teaches English to businessmen (and women) in France, I applaud this beautiful book and its stance on censorship, played out in a realistic and balanced manner. No snap judgments here. As a North Carolina native, I felt so very at home with Ms. Roberts' descriptions of the Carolina environment. I simply loved the book and its well-developed and quirky characters, particularly Antigone (a book lover who can't read due to dyslexia), Sam (her husband), Ryder (a broken-hearted NY street kid Antigone stumbles upon and brings home), Earthly (a former ACLU lawyer who fled from the rat race), and Star (Earthly's psychic young daughter). I'd be very happy to read more about them!
Sherry Roberts has woven together quite a mix of topics, characters and places in Book of Mercy, and it works! The characters are believable and developed enough to make you feel like you know them. The settings are painted well enough to make you feel like you're there with the characters. And there are enough serious topics tied into the story to keep you on your mental toes and thinking beyond the story. The book is well written and allows the reader to flow effortlessly through the story, enjoying the ride! Nice job, Sherry!
It was the topic of this book that grabbed me when I saw the description -- banning books. This is a hot-button issue for me, as I have a deep love of books and a dislike toward any sort of attitude that we need to regulate what goes on library shelves. Even if I don't like the content of a book, it has a right to be available to those who might want to read it, and when someone feels the need to remove a book from circulation just because they object to the content, it raises my hackles. So to see this subject tackled in a book -- and with the unique twist of the heroine being dyslexic and unable to read herself -- piqued my interest, and when "Book of Mercy" cropped up as a free e-book I decided to give it a shot.

While not a masterpiece, "Book of Mercy" was a pleasant enough read, with a quirky cast of characters and a thoughtful subject matter.

Antigone is a successful small business owner in the town of Mercy, Carolina, running a vegetarian restaurant, deer farm, and clothing store while her husband runs a successful repair garage. She's expecting her first child, has close friends among the townsfolk, and has taken in a young homeless man she encountered on one of her frequent long-distance drives. She also has a knack for getting things done and standing up for lost causes, so when the high-strung school librarian brings a crisis to Antigone -- the Mercy Study Club, a group of influential women who want to pull "offensive" literature out of the high school library -- Antigone can't say no. But she suffers from dyslexia and is unable to read herself, and she wonders if this condition will hurt her cause. And Irene, the leader of the study club, will go to any lengths necessary, from financial to legal, to win this battle...

The primary weakness of this book is that it tries to pile on too many characters. Antigone is a likable main character, quirky but believable, and many of the other townsfolk are similarly unique but familiar, with their own eccentricities and traits but not so strange that they feel unrealistic. A few characters feel superfluous, however, such as Ryder, the young man she picks up on a drive and brings home. He added little to the story, and his subplot feels like it was simply added into the story to pad out the page count.

The story itself, while fairly predictable, kept me reading. I couldn't help but root for Antigone, and Irene was an interesting villain, underhanded enough to dislike but just sympathetic enough that she didn't come across as a complete monster. And the town of Mercy, while like many fictional "southern small towns" in that it plays host to an eclectic cast of characters, was a charming locale and a nice setting for this story.

The primary focus of the story -- banning books -- is one that crops up from time to time in fiction, and while it makes a good conflict for this story, it doesn't bring any new arguments to the table. Whether you agree with Antigone or not -- that all books deserve a space on the bookshelf no matter the content -- this book probably won't change your mind. And some of the arguments against various books feel silly (would someone really ban "Where the Sidewalk Ends" because it encourages children to throw away dishes instead of wash them?), though for all I know people really HAVE tried to ban books for silly reasons like that...

All in all, while not a groundbreaking book, this is still a good read, and worth a few afternoons of your time. If nothing else, it provides a delightful protagonist to get to know, and I hope to see her again in another book someday.
Antigone lives in a world separated by severe dyslexia from those of us who find pleasure in books, a secret she has shamefully concealed for many years. When the leader of the local wealthy, influential ladies' club uses her influence to start banning books from the school library, Antigone stands up to her at great personal and financial cost.
I connected with this book on many levels. As a reader, I am aware of and abhor the often-successful campaigns to ban books, and have seen the desecration of library books. I have also studied and worked in the field of adult illiteracy and know that the adult illiterate often goes to great lengths to hide his or her illiteracy because the illiterate is often considered stupid rather than handicapped. The inability to read is highly stressful and frustrating in today's world. Antigone vents this frustration by driving hard and fast with the wind in her hair and the car radio blaring, much to the distress of her husband and friends.
The author weaves some very serious topics into an interesting tale peopled with quirky, lovable characters, and a few equally quirky, unlovable characters. The book is well written, well edited, and very entertaining.