LETS FIND YOU - REVIEW
Sarah Moore
Writers in the Sky is produced by Yvonne Perry based in Nashville, TN.
As someone who works in the writing and publishing industry, I am asked to read books by new authors nearly every day. While I am thrilled when anyone makes the decision to express themselves through the written word, I sometimes am left wondering why a writer felt the product they handed me was ready for public consumption. The message is jumbled and the mechanics are messy. Other times, the writing may be admirable but the author is simply rehashing a literary approach that has already been done. While imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, it does not get me excited about a new authors work. However, there are those instances in which I am presented with a book that captures me from the first page and has me reach the last sentence with an eagerness to share my discovery with others. Such is the case with the new release Lets Find You by Jeffrey Barbieri.
Lets Find You offers its readers the first-person account of Benjamin, a boy who shares both trivial and life-changing moments of his life through the pages of the novel. The book is divided into chapters that each read like a short story, but also come together seamlessly to provide an emotional depiction of Benjamins life from the time that he is a young boy through the point that he is on the verge of manhood.
While many of the stories that Barbieri shares through the perspective of his character Benjamin are light-hearted and remind us all of incidents from our own childhoods (playing pranks on our siblings, spending hours dreaming about our first love), the undercurrent of Lets Find You is heart-wrenching. There were instances in this book during which I felt a kick in my gut, and that is a testament to powerful writing. Benjamin must face life with no father, an emotionally absent mother who moves frequently in order to avoid this absent dad, and no one with whom he can share the difficult insecurities of adolescence. Although it sounds a bit clique, the statement holds true in this instance – you will laugh, you will cry.
One unique feature of Lets Find You is the integration of poetry throughout the novel. It seems that Barbieri uses these pauses to let us into an even deeper level of Benjamins emotions. For example, when a tragic moment involving a family member happens right in front of his eyes, Benjamin wonders why there is a ridiculous need in his home to remain strong and show no emotion. Readers then find the following: “The storms that surround me/Block me in,/Seeking some shelter/Dying within.” After that interlude, we move right back into the storyline. Most of Barbieris poetic offerings are quite short, and therefore offer the perfectly succinct summation of his character’s thoughts and fears at any particular moment. I loved this component of the novel.
If you are interested in reading a novel that beautifully captures difficult emotions and also offers amusing anecdotes to which any of us with siblings can relate, I highly recommend that you find yourself a copy of Lets Find You. This book is the first offering by new author Jeffrey Barbieri, and I look forward to the promise of future novels in the series.
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FROG - REVIEW
4.0 out of 5 stars Emotional Look into a Boys Struggle for Human Connection, August 22, 2010
- This review is from: Frog (Paperback)
How often do you read a book that provides you with the accompaniment
of a physical ache as you turn every page? I am not talking about a
painful reaction due to poor writing or awkward plot development--I
have experienced that sensation plenty of times during my tenure in the
writing and publishing world. Instead, I am referring to a story or a
character so compelling that you cannot help but have an emotional pull
to the pages before you. I felt that strong connection to Frog, the new
release by Jeffrey Barbieri. The second in a series featuring Benjamin
and his complicated family, Frog is a novel that continues with the
storytelling and poetic insights that made Barbieris first offering,
Lets Find You, so intriguing. But now, Frog extends the desperate
expression of a young man looking for love, comfort, and a sense of
belonging to an even more gripping intensity.
Frog brings us back into the world of Benjamin, the youngest of
four brothers who all seem to express their feelings towards one
another with taunts, insults, and the occasional beating. The boys live
with their seemingly apathetic mother, who moves her family with great
frequency in order to keep a distance from her former husband, and a
stepfather who is only ever referenced in passing and who has no
apparent influence on the family dynamics other than to amplify the
obvious disconnect that always has existed. Benjamin has recently moved
to yet another new neighborhood. He misses the girl, Elizabeth, who is
the muse for so much of his poetry and who embodies his ideals
concerning love and romance. He is self-conscious about his appearance
and his lack of ability to engage in conversation, envying his brothers
with their seeming ease around every person they meet. Anyone who has
experienced those feelings of not belonging (and you're lying if you
say you havent), will relate to Benjamin and perhaps revisit some
uncomfortable moments of their own.
For me, one of the episodes in the book that most clearly defined
the combination of emotional pain and endless hope for something better
that Benjamin expresses throughout his storytelling and poetry occurs
during a quiet moment with his mom. Benjamin has just been stung by
numerous bees and his mom rushes him to the bathroom to clean his
wounds and apply a paste to the marks left by the insects. He shares
that this medical emergency was the only time he could remember his mom
ever showing interest in him or displaying the slightest amount of
tenderness. You could tell that, despite the certain pain he was
experiencing, Benjamin did not want that moment to end. It was quite a
powerful interaction between parent and child upon which I was able to
eavesdrop as a reader. I wanted to reach into the pages of the book,
hold those two characters in that room, and give them both the
opportunity to share all of the feelings that had been forced to
repress for so many years.
For those already familiar with Barbieri's work through Lets Find
You, you can expect to find the same short story format and the
continued inclusion of Benjamins poetry on more pages than not when
you read Frog. And, like before, I believe it is the raw honesty
exhibited in each poem that makes the readers stop and really digest an
intense episode that has just been described. What Frog also offers,
though, is even more of those rare and simple moments when true human
bonds are established. While I encourage everyone to read the book to
discover Benjamin's emotional fate, I will share that he does find new
sources of strength and rediscovers others that he thought were gone
forever. Frog is a wonderful story of survival, love, and that need we
all have for human connection.
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