Helpful Score: 10
Great book. I especially reccomend it to anyone who has had their lives touched by breast cancer -either their own or a loved one. Also a great story about friendships and the healing powers friendships have.
Helpful Score: 7
Set in the small Massachusetts fishing town of Gloucester, Good Harbor is a slow-paced study of female friendship. Here Diamant can luxuriate in the development of just two principal characters: 59-year-old Kathleen Levine, a children's librarian who is undergoing radiation therapy for breast cancer, and a 42-year-old romance novelist, Joyce Tabachnik, who has bought a summer retreat in Gloucester in the hope of finally writing a "serious" book. The two meet at temple after a service presided over by a newly hired female rabbi. (What joy it must have been for Diamant, who chronicled so much oppression of Hebrew women in The Red Tent, to casually include the presence of female clergy.) Kathleen has no real confidante aside from her husband, Buddy; Joyce is facing estrangement from both her business-minded husband, Frank, and her soccer-obsessed daughter, Nina. What the women are lacking, they find in each other. As their intimacy grows, Diamant sometimes tells us what we already know, breaking into a conversation, for example, to announce how well things are going ("They smiled at each other. They were going to be okay."). This is a moving story nonetheless--short on incident, but with carefully drawn characters and fluid, matter-of-fact prose.
Helpful Score: 5
This was a satisfying read...the story of two women at different points in their lives, relying on each other for support and guidance.
Helpful Score: 4
This was a very good book about women friendships.
Helpful Score: 2
Lovely story of the power of friendship.
Not bad. Diamant's other book, The Red Tent, was much better.
Helpful Score: 2
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The women in the book remained a part of my spirit for weeks after I read it.
Helpful Score: 2
By the author of "The Red Tent." Not as endearing, but good characters.
Helpful Score: 1
Very enjoyable read.
Helpful Score: 1
A lovely book of friendship. A quick, good read for a weekend.
Not having read "The Red Tent", I had no particular expectations of this book. I found that while not big on action, the relationships between the two women and their families was enough to make "Good Harbor" a very satisfying read. (And it IS a very nice beach, too!)
Helpful Score: 1
A great read! I love how the dynamic friendship between the women grows and the characters are realistic. It also explores how a life-altering event (such as being diagnosed with breast cancer) can become the catalyst for working out other issues in your life and uncovering hidden fascets.
Helpful Score: 1
Wonderful story about the healing powers of friendship between women.
Helpful Score: 1
Nice, easy book about two Jewish women who become friends while walking on the beach. Good book about female friendship.
Helpful Score: 1
An excellent story....you will not be disappointed.
This was an easy read, but no where near as good as Diamont's first novel, The Red Tent.
Short but poignant novel of the friendship between two women who find themselves at crossroads in their lives. I originally read this in 2006 but had absolutely no memory of it.
I did get a little impatient at Kathleen's response to her illness, though I recognize everyone is different. I had the same thing, missed a total of two days of work after the surgery and sailed through the radiation without a second thought. The book may be a disservice to women by increasing their fear of breast cancer treatment. Probably not a good choice for someone in the midst of treatment.
I did get a little impatient at Kathleen's response to her illness, though I recognize everyone is different. I had the same thing, missed a total of two days of work after the surgery and sailed through the radiation without a second thought. The book may be a disservice to women by increasing their fear of breast cancer treatment. Probably not a good choice for someone in the midst of treatment.
Love this book.
A departure from her other books but I enjoyed it. Liked the aspect of the womens friendship.
I loved this book. The author has a great insite for woman's report. I love this author. Great book !
Did not enjoy this book nearly as much as The Red Tent. Not bad...just not exceptional.
Good Harbor is a story about two women who are dealing with challenges that cause them to reassess their lives, their choices, and even their femininity during a period of about a year. One, the elder, deals with breast cancer and aging; she also continues to confront the grief and loss she and her husband share, but deal differently with, from the senseless and accidental death many years earlier of a beloved young child.
The younger woman is coming to a different type of watershed in her life, as she assesses her professional dreams, her marriage, and whether she is losing touch with her adolescent daughter, whose personality is very different from hers.
The two women become friends when the younger moves into a house in Good Harbor, MA, where the older woman has lived for years and has very deep roots. The friendship comes at a time when both women need to reexplore their lives with someone who hasn't already "typed" them based on a shared history or set of expectations.
Diamant does an excellent job of exploring the lives of these women, and she is sympathetic in her portrayals of their husbands and children. It is written very differently from and is not, for me, as wonderful as her novel The Red Tent, but it is a nice read.
The younger woman is coming to a different type of watershed in her life, as she assesses her professional dreams, her marriage, and whether she is losing touch with her adolescent daughter, whose personality is very different from hers.
The two women become friends when the younger moves into a house in Good Harbor, MA, where the older woman has lived for years and has very deep roots. The friendship comes at a time when both women need to reexplore their lives with someone who hasn't already "typed" them based on a shared history or set of expectations.
Diamant does an excellent job of exploring the lives of these women, and she is sympathetic in her portrayals of their husbands and children. It is written very differently from and is not, for me, as wonderful as her novel The Red Tent, but it is a nice read.
LOVED it!!!! I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever had a best friend with whom they have been able to share their hopes, dreams, expectations, and regrets. Anita Diamant explores the gift of friendship in an honest, enlightening, and hopeful spirit. Joyce and Kathleen are 2 women with whom I would love to share a walk on the beach at Good Harbor!It's a story of love, forgiveness, loss, and the amazing resilience of the human spirit. A wonderful read for women! A wonderful read for breast cancer survivors! And a wonderful read for anyone who has ever lost someone they love. Powerful!
Not a whole lot of substance here, but a sweet, quick "chick-lit" read.
A tale of comtemporary female friendship set in a beach town in Massachusetts. A good read from the author of "The Red Tent."
Nice easy read. A book to read on a relaxing vacation...
A good read--very well-writtne
A woman's life is changed after a diagnosis of breast cancer.
This could be an Oprah selection if it isn't already. A book about women, told by women, for women.
Pretty good book, very good at hooking you in.
"Graceful and entertaining." - The Toronto Sun
This novel of contemporary female friendship is by the acclaimed author of The Red Tent.
I loved this book!
