Hard to pinpoint how that was conveyed; maybe a world without constant intrusive communications technology has a flavor all its own, slower-paced and with more space for introspective interior monologue and attention to one's physical environment. Why only three stars? The situation with Paulie's new husband was tied up in an unconvincingly quick way.
Because all the action was seen through Harry's or Paulie's third-person-close POV, there were no scenes set in the cult community, and thus no opportunity for the reader to gain insight into the cult's attraction for seemingly smart and well-adjusted young people. The book was supposedly about Grace, but she remains a cipher throughout. She is either the idealized devoted successful daughter that her parents thought she was, or the brainwashed and hostile zombie they encounter afterward.
I desperately wanted to hear her side of the story.
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There was a real missed opportunity here to look critically at the similarities between romantic love and religious cults. I thought the book was going there in the beginning, but by the end, the balance has tipped too far in favor of Harry's belief that romantic enmeshment is the highest good. He was a total love addict! There seemed no place for Paulie's feminist resistance to losing her identity in a man.
A mature second-time-around would have incorporated her wisdom as well as his idealism, in my view. Perhaps Grace joined a cult, not because her parents divorced, but because she too wanted the kind of intense and borderline-unhealthy loss of self that Harry and Paulie called LOVE? I assume that cult leader "Father Star" is a nod to Rev.
Sun Myung Moon, but in a book with no other people of color, it was a bit problematic to make him a "sinister" Asian man, and completely gratuitous for Harry to call him a "Jap" in an early interior monologue. Ditto for the fat-shaming of the cult-sympathizing nurse when Harry is in the hospital. Really, I expect a 21st-century editor to catch such things. View all 4 comments. Nov 06, Lisa-Jaine rated it it was ok. I didn't enjoy this very much. The Cult stuff seems an afterthought with the main story bordering on Paulie and Harry's relationship. Grace's character wasn't fully developed and I felt no empathy.
Nov 26, Jill rated it liked it. Harry and Paulie met in the late s and immediately fell deeply in love. Their all-consuming relationship led to marriage, the birth of their beautiful daughter Grace, and eventually to a break-up. Paulie felt like she was losing a part of herself to the intensity of the relationship, and she stepped back to regain her autonomy, invest in her career path, and eventually to remarry a kind and generous man, Julian. Now Grace is 23, and she's not answering her phone calls. Harry, whose second ma Harry and Paulie met in the late s and immediately fell deeply in love.
Harry, whose second marriage has just ended, is in England trying to regain his footing. Paulie is celebrating her birthday in New York with Julian and expecting Grace for dinner, but her daughter never shows. Calls to her home go to her answering machine, and calls to her office offer no answers either.
Finally, Paulie gets a late-night call wishing her a happy birthday, but Paulie can tell that something is wrong with Grace. She feels as if her daughter has someone in the room with her, someone who is directing what she says. Paulie is worried but keeps calling the number she has for Grace. One day, a young man named Hal answered and told Paulie that he didn't know Grace but that he was at Camp Star, the only information she could get before he hung up.
A frenzy of phone calls to law enforcement finally yielded an answer: Although the officer wouldn't use call them a cult himself, he said that others people did consider it a cult and had tried to rescue their family members from the camp. Paulie panics, and she and Harry meet in California to try to come up with a way to get their daughter back.
Finding Grace is a novel of a family torn apart. Finding Grace is the story of the lengths to which parents will go to protect their children and the choices that we all have to make on our journey to self-discovery and self-actualization. While the characters in Finding Grace are well fleshed out, I did find the prose a little flowery at times. And while the information on cults rings true to the setting of the novel--the s--it seemed like the understanding we have now about not just cults but also controlling interpersonal relationships would add an informed dimension to the relationships in this novel, particularly to the one between Harry and Paulie, that would have made the overall novel richer.
However, it was a very interesting study of the family and marital relationships and expectations of the late 20th century. Sep 12, Jennifer Shanahan rated it it was amazing Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really thought this book was going to be about cults and a focus on trying to get the main character, Grace, out of a cult--which it was to some extent. However, it was more of a love story, a beautiful love story about a family full of love for each other. Pauline and Harry were so in love when they married and had their daughter Grace.
They showered her with love as she grew up. Harry, a screen writer, got a job on the West Coast and moved for it. Paulie didn't want to leave so eventually they split up with Grace staying in NYC visiting Harry when she could. They all remained close in spite of the divorce even as Harry and Pauly married other people. Grace is living in DC and happy, working in politics and on her own. Suddenly she just kind of disappears and her parents immediately worry because Grace is rarely out of touch. They join together in search of Grace who seems to have abandoned her life and joined a cult in California.
The cult part of the story is shocking and difficult to read but probably extremely realistic in showing how cults operate. Pauly and Harry desperately try to get Grace out of the clutches of the cult even though she already appears to be completely brainwashed and says she is happy. They try everything, including some very drastic measures, to rescue Grace. During the process of trying to get Grace back, they fall in love again. The love between them is absolutely beautiful and my favorite part of the story.
This book was an unexpected love story that unfolded during the battle to save a woman from a life in service to a leader who thinks he should rule the world. Sad but probably true in the real world. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. My first Warren Adler book but definitely not my last. Oct 02, Norma rated it really liked it Shelves: Adler is masterful in his ability to paint a very visual picture and capture personalities on the page and this is apparent in his treatment of the two main protagonists.. Now middle-aged, Harry and Paulie were once in an obsessive love relationship from which neither has fully recovered, despite the passing of many years and both of them subsequently remarrying.
And there was a daughter, Grace, now in her twenties. When they learn of her leaving her good job and co "We are living in a movie. When they learn of her leaving her good job and comfortable life to join a cult, they come together again in a joint attempt to extricate her from it, restoring her to the world she had left behind. Whilst ostensibly about the cult and the parental attempts to 'save' Grace, and, indeed, much is written about this, the book is really a romance, an overwhelming, almost suffocating, exclusion of the rest of the world by two egocentric figures about whom everything revolves and anything else is secondary.
- Essays in Radical Empiricism.
- Work, pray, fear: my life in the Family cult.
- Presidential Policy Directive 8 and the National Preparedness System: Background and Issues for Congress.
Grace is there, but hardly exists, except as the 'third person in the marriage'. As with all of Adler's work, the text flows easily and this is a quick book to read. But the impact lingers and, for days after completion, this reader at least four herself drawn back into thinking about the powerful relationships presented. And the total condemnation of a cult for entrapping someone has toe balanced against that entrapment of another type of 'cult'. This was a book unlike that which I had expected.
But why was I surprised when Mr. Adler has already written a more conventional adventure thriller yes, entitled Cult with this subject at it's centre? With this author, the unexpected should be anticipated. May 20, Dan Santos rated it really liked it.
Finding Grace: Captured by a Cult by Warren Adler
If you are parents or grandparents, I have news for you: There is a new quality to this Adler book. The If you are parents or grandparents, I have news for you: The style is proper of the Great American Novel. The plot itself may seem overused, but not quite. There have been novels about young adults kidnapped by a California cult; mainly in the 70s.
This one is rather different. The parents are divorced and living far away. The kidnapped daughter works for a politician. The father has recently dumped or been dumped by wife number two. The plot is tight so, were I to give you more details, I would certainly spoil the surprise developments and ending. Four Stars for the new Warren Adler novel. Sep 23, Angie rated it it was ok Shelves: I found this story to be bland.
The premise of divorced parents coming together to save their only daughter peeked my attention. However, the characters were very under developed that it was cringe-worthy to read. The main protagonist is clearly Harry given how much insight we have into his though process.
Seoyeon Lee had one chance to escape and she took it, running down the road in Fiji in her pyjamas and flip-flops. The then year-old was being pursued by members of Grace Road - including her own mother - who she says had tricked her into going to the Pacific island nation. A year earlier, in , Seoyeon had come home to South Korea from the US, where she was studying, for the summer. Her mum was suffering from uterine cancer but had refused treatment. Once back at university, she found her mother had still not sought treatment and would only do so on one condition - that Seoyeon quit school and went back to South Korea.
After her mother went through surgery, she told Seoyeon that she wanted to move to Fiji to recover - and insisted that she go along with her. Eventually, Seoyeon agreed to go for two weeks to help her adjust. I was like, how could I have been so stupid?
Finding Grace: Captured by a Cult
Grace Road Church's rice plantation in Navua, south of Suva. The plantation is said to be in preparation for the armageddon. South Korea has a significant Christian population, and in recent decades many small, fringe churches have sprung up, some of them developing cult-like characteristics. Grace Road, which insists it is not a cult, started out small in , but now numbers about 1, followers, according to Professor Tark Ji-il of Busan Presbyterian University, who has closely studied Korean cults.
The church's founder and head pastor, Shin Ok-ju, believes that a great famine is imminent, and that her followers "needed to find a new home to prepare for the second coming of Jesus", said Professor Tark. In - the same year it was classified as heretical by mainstream churches - the church uprooted to Fiji, declaring that it would be one of the few places saved by God from famine.
About of its followers now live in Fiji, mostly working for the company it has set up to manage its operations, GR Group. Seoyeon said those there have been "handpicked" by the leadership "maybe depending on how much you've donated". I'm pretty sure my mum took all that and gave it to the church," she said. The group has built up a sizeable business empire, from construction to restaurants to agriculture. The group's construction business has also won lucrative contracts, including a tender to renovate the Fijian president's residence and its State House, which Mr Kim insists was won through a legal tender process.
Five church members who had returned to South Korea accused Ms Shin of confiscating their passports and holding them against their will. An exclusive group of us would meet in the evenings to play basketball or soccer. We were the misfits and the ones who thought outside the box. Willing hung out with us and I developed something of a crush on him which I dared not tell anyone for fear of punishment.
What I believed was that all children deserved love. Babies were a big part of life in Gloriavale. Grandad was very fond of bragging that we had the biggest families in New Zealand. A favourite sermon of his was to preach about how lucky we were to have been conceived by Christian parents. The fruit of the womb is His reward. Some of the women could knit a whole garment in just a few hours. Childbirth was highly celebrated and parents were expected to prepare their children for the practicalities of having a large family. We birthed our children at home.
There was no need to visit a medical institution for something that was a purely natural part of life. God had promised us that women who continued in holiness and faith would be saved in childbearing. But if there were problems with a birth then a birthing mother would be taken to Greymouth hospital. The district midwife made regular visits to pregnant women and attended the births to ensure nothing went wrong. He was fine once the midwife got him breathing. Asher, Judah, Serena and Melodie. Because I was now the oldest girl I learned all the child-rearing skills too.
I bathed my younger siblings, changed nappies, helped with potty training and when the babies cried in the night I would climb out of bed to attend to them to relieve my exhausted mother. Women were allowed about two weeks off after giving birth but then they were straight back into the workforce. I always wondered how some of the ladies did it. They would birth during the night and the next morning be at the meal table to present the child to the community.
The husband would make a big announcement: I was rubbing her back, giving her sips of juice and bathing her face with a cool cloth.
- Long Hot Summer;
- The 9 Quickest Website Fixes You Can Make Today That Will Have You Converting Tomorrow: An Interview with Mike Morgan.
- Sovereign Grace Ministries.
- Theo – Der Fuchsdämon (Sulta-Trilogie 3) (German Edition)!
- Lerntheoretische Grundlagen zur formalen, non-formalen und informellen Bildung (German Edition).
- Trace Elements in Soils and Plants, Fourth Edition.
- Inside the bizarre 1960s cult, The Family: LSD, yoga and UFOs.
The midwife decided she needed urgent medical help but we were so far away from any hospital with no time to wait for an ambulance. We would have to transport Patie ourselves. The boys brought round one of the stripped-out vans, threw down a mattress, blankets and pillows and we helped Patie lie down. I sat by her head and held her hands as her body was being wracked by gigantic contractions. About 20 minutes into the journey we went over a sharp bump. I can feel the baby coming. Patie was clenching my hand, almost breaking it. Just breathe through it.
Go with the pain. She was bearing down. The back doors of the van flung open, I scrambled out, the midwife climbed in and a few minutes later my tiny, screaming cousin Submissive was born. The midwife handed her to me after her mother had a cuddle. I cradled her squawking body in my arms. This is an edited extract from Daughter of Gloriavale: How could he do that to a boy of 13? Fervent spat a lecture of how godly parents beat their children to submission.
Then he turned to his son.