Pulse en una miniatura para ir a Google Books.
Cargando... Ruby Redpor Linzi Glass
Ninguno Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Premios
In Ruby Winters' world, colour opens some doors and slams others shut. Her opulent Johannesburg neighbourhood is a far cry from the streets of Soweto where anger and hatred simmer under the surface. Ruby can't resist the blue-eyed Afrikaans boy who brings her the exciting rush of first love, but whose presence brings hushed whispers and disapproving glances. She might not see race, colour or creed - but it seems everybody else does. For Ruby, making some choices means letting others go, and as the darkness begins to descend, she must find a way to follow a brighter path . . . This dazzling novel will entrance teenage and adult readers alike. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
Debates activosNingunoCubiertas populares
Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-ValoraciónPromedio:
¿Eres tú?Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing. |
As the story opens, Julian, a particularly promising young visual artist from Soweto committed to representing the hardship and endurance of his people, moves in with the Winters. He’s been viciously attacked and slashed by thugs from his own community who are resentful of his success. Ruby forms a friendship with this young man and for a while the reader suspects that the novel will be their love story. No. In fact, Ruby is only a sort of muse to him.
Ultimately, however, this novel does turn into a teenage love story—not quite a 70s version of Romeo and Juliet, but with echoes of that drama. Ruby falls for Johannes, the handsome rugby captain at a rival private school where children of the wealthy Afrikaner minority are educated. The relationship is intense and challenging. When Ruby brings Johannes as her guest to the annual dance at her high school, violence breaks out. Glass shows that racial and ethnic tensions in Johannesberg run deep, not just between blacks and whites but also between those of Anglo and Boer ancestry. Ruby, to this point a popular straight-A student who has served as a school prefect, becomes a social pariah. Her life is turned upside down. Meanwhile her parents are under intensified police surveillance for consorting with blacks. The exhibition of Julian’s work at Annabel’s gallery may not be able to take place, and Ruby’s father’s life is threatened..
Glass has the bare bones of a good story here. It’s how she fleshes those bones out—her writing—that is problematic. The author appears never to have met an adjective or adverb that she didn’t like. She is particularly preoccupied with the colour and style of clothes and furniture. Some of the similes she provides are absurd. There’s a great deal of lofty language and many melodramatic moments in this novel. Ruby is an idealized protagonist whose heart bleeds for the suffering of others. She’s the only student at her school noble enough to acknowledge the humanity of the school’s hardworking Xhosa gardener, for example. Oh, and did I mention that she is also absolutely beautiful?
I wish editors had worked to curb the excesses in Glass’s overwrought prose. This book had potential, but I’m afraid the writing is often distractingly overblown. Having said this, I do believe some teenage girls would be engrossed by Ruby’s story, and Glass does manage to communicate a lot of valuable information about life in South Africa during the 1970s. ( )