• Remember My Beauties
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Remember My Beauties Book Cover Remember My Beauties
Lynne Hugo
Women's Fiction
Switchgrass Books
April 18, 2016
Paperback
296

Imagine a hawk’s view of the magnificent bluegrass pastures of Kentucky horse country. Circle around the remnants of a breeding farm, four beautiful horses grazing just beyond the paddock. Inside the ramshackle house, a family is falling apart.

Hack, the patriarch breeder and trainer, is aged and blind, and his wife, Louetta, is confined by rheumatoid arthritis. Their daughter, Jewel, struggles to care for them and the horses while dealing with her own home and job—not to mention her lackluster second husband, Eddie, and Carley, her drug-addicted daughter. Many days, Jewel is only sure she loves the horses. But she holds it all together. Until her brother, Cal, shows up again. Jewel already has reason to hate Cal, and when he meets up with Carley, he throws the family into crisis—and gives Jewel reason to pick up a gun.

Every family has heartbreaks, failures, a black sheep or two. And some families end in tatters. But some stumble on the secret of survival: if the leader breaks down, others step up and step in. In this lyrical novel, when the inept, the addict, and the ex-con join to weave the family story back together, either the barn will burn to the ground or something bigger than any of them will emerge, shining with hope. Remember My Beauties grows large and wide as it reveals what may save us.

Diamonds are formed from ugly rocks under great pressure.

-unkown

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I have to be honest, Remember My Beauties by Lynne Hugo was one of those books that I really struggled to read.  From the beginning, not only could I not relate to the lead character, Jewel, but her attitude and life choices made me strongly dislike her.  I hated the victim mentality and inability of her character to deal with life and issues.  For example, the book starts out with Jewel hacking off her long, beautiful hair because she feels her life is out of control.  How does that fix anything? dysfunctional

That is just the beginning of things that have dysfunctional written all over them.  How about out of control, druggy adult daughter; good for nothing, free-loading, molested me as a young girl brother who has  high induced sex with my adult daughter; mother who takes advantage of me and chooses my good for nothing brother over me; dull husband who has no comprehension of me emotionally, wants nothing to do with my druggy daughter yet wants his two kids to live with us; and blind dad who loves the horses like I do but will never stand up to my mother when it comes to me????? Makes you want to run out and read it!

I probably put this book down a dozen times (good thing I had a couple of weeks to get the review out!) But with my deadline looming I decided to take one for the team and push through it.  I’m so glad I did because it is a gem of a tale….pearl in oyster

The ending will bring you to tears and make you appreciate the fact that life is ugly, and messy and painful at times, but also full of love and second chances.  And just like a pearl, diamond, gold, or anything precious is not easily obtained but worth all the effort so is Remember My Beauties worth the the read.

 

 

Read more about Lynne Hugo at lynnehugo.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter.