The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel
Written by Barbara O'Neal
Narrated by Carly Robins, Kim Staunton, Allyson Johnson and Susan Dalian
4/5
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About this audiobook
Four women face the turning points of their lives in a warm and wise novel about choices and second chances by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.
A loving wife and a mother of three accomplished children, forty-six-year-old Trudy Marino has an uncomplicated life—until she’s blindsided by her husband’s affair. But in Trudy’s close-knit neighborhood, she’s not alone in navigating the sudden surprises in a woman’s life.
Her neighbor Roberta has just lost her husband of sixty-two years and struggles with bittersweet memories and grief. Roberta’s granddaughter Jade is a divorcée who has taken up a cathartic new hobby to get over her cheating ex. And there’s Shannelle, whose creative aspirations are fracturing her marriage.
Then Trudy meets Angel, a sensual young man with the vulnerable heart of a poet who awakens her to invigorating new sensations. With a bracing confidence and three dear friends coming together in confusion, anger, and hope, Trudy is encouraged to take control of her life, to reflect on the choices she didn’t make, and to fulfill the youthful dreams she abandoned. As a new world opens up, Trudy can only marvel at where to go from here.
Revised edition: This edition of The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue includes editorial revisions.
Barbara O'Neal
Barbara O’Neal is the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of more than a dozen novels of women’s fiction, including the #1 Amazon Charts bestseller When We Believed in Mermaids as well as The Starfish Sisters, This Place of Wonder, The Lost Girls of Devon, Write My Name Across the Sky, and The Art of Inheriting Secrets. Her award-winning books have been published in over two dozen countries. She lives on the Oregon coast with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent. For more information, visit barbaraoneal.com.
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Reviews for The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue
53 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reading Barbara Samuel is like talking to a friend over a cup of coffee. She writes about women, for women, and they are wonderful. This story is probably my favorite of all of hers.
December, 2009. I just finished re-reading this book for about the 4th time...and each time I feel I like it more and more! - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5his is one of those novels that draws you in from the first page and you just can't put it down. At the novel's opening, Berta is losing her husband of 62 years to a long illness. As her friends gather round, the novel focuses in turn, on the lives of each of her neighbors. Trudy is recently separated from her husband of 20+ years. His infidelity took her by surprise. As she struggles to make her way as a single woman in a world she never imagined facing as anything but a couple, she takes stock of her life. She looks at her decision to leave college and marry, trading travel and academia for the life of a mom. Jade is recently divorced from a con-man who is now doing time in prison. She returns to her childhood home to help Berta, her grandmother, recover from her grandfather's death. However, she is still struggling with her own divorce and heartbreak.Shanelle grew up dirt poor in a trailer park. She is married to a good man and has a good life. However, her husband resents her dream of becoming a writer.The story is told, in turn, through the eyes of each woman. Each struggles to make her own way and still hold up her friends in their struggles. I love how the author tells the story realistically. There are no fairy tale endings here. There is no black and white. Each character is human and behaves as we, ourselves, would in similar circumstances.I was especially drawn to Trudy. Her struggle though her separation and having to deal with "the other woman" in a small town was heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.I really enjoyed this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Okay, The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue is a less than great book that I enjoyed and actually stayed up til 1:30 last night to finish. Yet I know that Barbara Samuel has written much better books.It's one of those multiple character books that one feels is aimed at multiple markets - not a good feeling.The major character is Trudy, who at 46 discovers that her husband Rick is having an affair. Trudy takes a tire iron and breaks the windows in his truck [way to go, girl], kicks him out, then realizes that she does really love him. For Trudy most of the novel's action involves looking back on the choices that she didn't make and try to decide where she should go from here. I did find Trudy and Rick's story to be riveting - he done her wrong, they both know it, but now what?There's Jade, a beautiful bi-racial social worker whose ex-husband is doing time, and who has come to Kitchen Avenue to care for her recently widowed grandmother. Jade's ambition is to be a boxer. [yep, she wants to be r-e-a-l-l-y strong]Jade's grandmother, Roberta, has just lost her greatly loved husband of sixty-two years. She's faced with the decision of just how hard she's willing to fight to go on with her life.For me the least interesting character was Shannelle [her mom thought she was naming her after the perfume.] Shannelle is an aspiring writer. She's from a rather trashy background, married to a dependable blue collar hispanic guy, and requires constant encouragement to 'follow her dream.'I liked Trudy, Rick, and their kids enough to read this one again. Next time I'll skip over whiney Shannelle.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Could not put down this book