Melanie Yu Yu itibaren बेळगांव, कर्नाटक, भारत
re-read May 2014
i did not grow up in the united states, so i have no decade old memories of delilah and her radio show. nevertheless (or maybe, therefore) i really enjoyed this book. i like how the stories tell about life. it often is unfair. pain is, in the long run, inevitable. you never know what is around the corner. things like this - nothing that we would not have been aware of before, but gentle reminders to hold on, or let go, and especially to never give up hope. i am not religious - most definitely not christian! - and really cant stand efforts of people to convert me to their fantastical belief systems. delilah and many of the story tellers are obviously hard core christians, but it did not bother me that "god" is invoked and referred to so often. in this book, i feel that people express their beliefs without trying to lecture me or force it onto me, so honestly, i dont mind - they can believe whatever they want. for me, it did not take away from the actual message of this story collection (which very well may differ from what delilah thinks the "actual message" is, lol.)
This is my first Orson Scott Card book and I picked it up because I had heard that he is a fantastic writer and I liked the few pages that I read of it. Overall, it was an easy read but it didn't suck me in and leave me wanting more. I understand that this is going to be a series and while I look forward to the next one, I'm not chomping at the bit for it either. His writing style is clear and enjoyable, there is plenty of entertaining dialogue, but there are moments when I felt that there was a bit too much cheese, particularly at the end. The main character, Danny North (or Silverman), is a likeable character (especially as he gets older) but Card injects too much wisdom into him at 15-16 years old. I was expecting to see him struggle with certain aspects of growing up, considering how he spent his formative years, and he didn't. He seems too well put together to be truly believable by the last half of the book. To sum it up: it was good, but it wasn't fantastic.