Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Artist's Daughter | Book Review

The Artist’s Daughter by Alexandra Kuykendall is a story of heart break, determination and world traveling. 

The beginning of the book starts with meeting 8 yr old Alexandra.  She is an American in Spain, riding in the taxi, with her mom, on her way to meet her father for the first time.  As this day unfolds you can feel all the emotions that she went through as a little girl just running of the pages and touching your heart. You can feel the nervousness, disappointment, and finally, rejection that such a small girl has to experience in just a matter of hours.   Her father is older and uncaring which is such a hard thing for her to understand.

You feel for the little girl that she once was but, you are quickly moved to different dates, throughout the book,  in her life where the issues that father provoked by being unloving and having very little contact, have made it hard for her to deal with men because of her relationship with her non-existent dad.   She is finding out that a lot of her issues with men stem from any lack of male figure in her life.  Although she did finally get a step dad, who was great to her but, the damage her biological father has done was already affecting her outlook on relationships.

Kuykendall has lived a great life so far.  She graduated from college, helped teenagers who lived in homes, found a husband, and has built a family but, not without having to address some of the issues that she had been burying for a long time.  It’s not an easy life when you are being raised by a single mom (for the most part) and have a father who tells you that he only had a relationship with your mother because she wanted a kid.  That would hurt someone deeply and I think that she has made a great life for herself and family. 

I will say though, that I had a hard time with this book.  You skip though her life so much that it’s not a fluid as I would have liked.  But, there are some wonderful questions at that end of the book to help you reflect on your life and to see if anything she has put into this book might be able to help you.  It’s a touching memoir that might be of great help to someone dealing with the same circumstances as herself. 

Available may 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

***I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.***

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