Heart of Palm Review (Novel)

Title: Heart of Palm

Genre: Literature, Adult Fiction

Put on the Song: My Love by Westlife

Rating:

This ARC was given to me by Grove Press via Netgalley for an honest review.

Let me start this off by saying, literature isn't quite my genre. I don't typically read this sort of fiction, really. I'm more of an action, fantasy, romance person, you know. The sort of books with loads of crazy out-of-the-world stuff happening. Fiction being so very fictitious. Yes,well, HEART OF PALM is a little more down-to-Earth compared to my usual reads.

PROS	CONS
Flowing, lyrical prose Interesting, fully dimensional cast of characters ‘Real-life’ issues A meaningful read	Overly descriptive (To me) Sporadic pacing

Synthesis: Well, there are more pros than cons, so it goes to show that what I think of this book is mainly positive.

All right, I'll start off by talking about the cast. Ms Smith constructed a wonderful cast of very flawed people. There's no big fight of Good vs Evil in this book, there's no specific line that separates the characters. They're all very, very human. They're people with their own agendas, their own issues, their own faults. And yes, their saving grace. They're everyday people, like the rest of us. So here's a rundown of our ensemble of characters:

Mother: Arla- Despite Frank featuring more prominently in the blurb, I'm actually more inclined to think of Arla as the protagonist. Arla's wonderful, she's stubborn and she's afraid of change, but she's strong. She's the backbone of the family (as much as she claims Frank to be her 'rock'). She's been dealt several tough blows in life, but she held it together. In the prologue, we see her young and naive. Frankly, we started off on the wrong foot, Arla and I. I thought she was just willful, really. But I fell in love with her as the novel progressed.

Father: Dean- Dean was difficult to like, but in the end, he more than made up for his short-comings. He doesn't appear till the second half of the book, and the other characters didn't quite like him, so we're looking at him from their eyes at first. But when we get to really know him, when find out he isn't all that bad.

Second Son: Frank- Saint Frank. That's what his brother calls him. We start off this novel by thinking of Frank as the good guy, the filial son, the responsible one. But along the way, we find out he isn't all that perfect. And that's a good thing. He gets annoyed, he gets frustrated, he second-guesses himself, because really, he's only human. Frank didn't really speak to me as a character, honestly. But he was... human.

First Son: Carson- If Frank plays the good guy, Carson's introduced as the bad. He's very driven to succeed in life, then again, who isn't? Carson is a very real person, with very real money problems. He's screwed up royally when we're introduced to him, if you'll pardon the phrase, but the thing is, Carson knows he's screwed up, and he's looking to fix things. He was a character I couldn't like most of the time, but he had his redeeming moments.

Eldest Daughter: Sophia- She's the sister who's supposedly 'crazy' and she's dealing with her problems her way. I don't have much to say about her. It's either because she wasn't a large part of the book, which I suspect, or because I skimmed through her parts. Which is probably likely too.

Daughter-in-law: Elizabeth- She's Carson's wife and Frank's crush. I don't really know if she's weak or she's strong. Over the course of the book, she makes a few... difficult choices. And personally, I haven't the faintest idea if she's made the right or the wrong ones. What I like about her though, is the fact that she's level-headed, and also, she's a very nice mother.

There's plenty happening in the book, but it really doesn't pick up the pace until you hit roughly Page 190, and that's more than one-third way into the book. The first few pages were almost excruciatingly slow for me. The writing was wonderfully gorgeous, at least, I thought it was. The words brought images to mind, it brought the place to life. The book breathed life into Utina, everything was vivid and alive. When I was reading Heart of Palm, I was in Utina myself.

After we've hit Page 190, the book gets pretty emotionally charged. Also, plenty of questions raised before were answered. Questions about Will, the youngest son (who died), questions about Dean's desertion, almost-betrayal. It really tugged on my heartstrings. It was a story about family and life, love and change. It was about finding out about yourself and about the people you've known all your life, and it was real and surreal altogether. And nearing the end of the book, the scenes were real tearjerkers.

The ending, well, I won't spoil it for anyone, but it's a full circle. I really loved the character arc in this novel. We do see the characters change, whether they like it or not, and it's the sort of character development that makes a story, well, worth reading. Really, it's a nice story. It isn't my sort of story per say, but if you like the sort of meaningful, emotional books, I think Heart of Palm would be right up your alley.

And because I like putting pictures in my post, here's one that gives the right... feels for the story: