Tuesday Tells it Slant by Holly Christine ~ A Review

Released January 15, 2010

Paperback: 278 pages

Publisher: CreateSpace

ISBN-10: 1450571212

ISBN-13: 978-1450571210

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Tuesday Morning has always been a little different. She's kept a diary since 1989 and while researching for her English Lit thesis in 2003 on Emily Dickinson's transcendental tendencies, finds a poem that will change her life. Haunted by a past that she considers less than desirable, Tuesday recreates her history with the stroke of a pen. Page by page, year by year, she rewrites her painful memories as she has always fantasized. Bullied and discontented with her body before, she now becomes popular, thin and desired. Throughout this cleansing process, she consciously decides what to keep and what to toss. She scans her old diary entries for words that trigger painful and unpleasant thoughts: Fat Tuesday (her nickname in high school), Katie (her childhood neighbor turned bully), Writer (her dream of becoming) and Monday (her identical twin sister). Tuesday finds herself in an odd place six years later, unknowingly spending each day of her life as someone that she was never meant to become. With each breath of her new life, Tuesday obliviously loses more of herself. When a special person of her past returns to her present, Tuesday is forced to choose between the life that she had once desired and her true self. We all have deep secrets and skeletons in our closets. Imagine having the ability to not only change the past, but also completely alter the present and future. How far will Tuesday go to erase her past? And how much of herself will she lose in the process?

My Thoughts:

I had the perfect setting in which to begin this book, the amazing wonder-dog, Obie, and I were sitting in the middle of the swiftly-flowing stream on a fallen log in our local park when I cracked open the first pages of Tuesday Tells it Slant. Before I could finish the first chapter we had to move to the edge of the stream to sit in the swing where I was able to complete almost half the book in an afternoon while Obie played in the water and took mini-naps! 

The book is a quick read. Tuesday Morning (yes that is really the character's name!) and her identical twin sister, Monday Morning, are forever penned to the pages of Tuesday's journal she receives in 5^th grade from her mother. Tuesday quickly realizes her vocation in life will be as a writer; "As the years passed, the pages became tattered with the abuse of a ballpoint pen, attempting to push my soul into the page permanently" (180).


Throughout high school, college and her first years in the work force, Tuesday continues to write in "Claudia," her diary. Tuesday's life unfolds sporadically as the dates jump around from 1990 to 2009 and back to 2003 and all around again. It was frustrating as a reader to try to keep up with what year and what age I was in as Tuesday. And as she was filled with so much angst and self-esteem problems, keeping up with her issues was somewhat difficult. All throughout her early years, Tuesday suffered from weight difficulties and was dubbed "Fat Tuesday" in school. Unfortunately the name stuck both in elementary, high school and in her heart.


There is definite tragedy within the pages of Tuesday Tells it Slant. But it almost seems like an afterthought rather than climatic. In college, Tuesday writes a senior thesis on the transcendentalism of Emily Dickinson's poetry. There is one poem that appears to be a catalyst for change (and not for the better) for Tuesday:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant—
success in circuit lies too bright
for our infirm delight
the truth's superb surprise
As lightning to the children
eased with explanation
kind the truth must dazzle

gradually or every man be blind--
~Emily Dickinson (89)

With that poem, especially the first line "Tell all the truth but tell it slant," Tuesday gives herself permission to re-write her past, completely; to forget her past, the hurts, the pain, the embarrassment – and especially the climax. (can you tell I'm trying so hard not to give any spoilers away!) She writes in Claudia "Tomorrow I am new again. A rebirth. A new future, a change in the present by slanting the past. My new truth."


What I liked about the book: the premise of the story – identical twins, one is a writer, one is into sports; life happens to them both and then what happens to the family afterwards. The fantastic lines about working in a bookstore, writing and loving books. A true book lover had to have written this book!


What was not as enjoyable: the jumping around in the story with the dates; I did not understand how people could deal with their grief in that manner; but I have never grieved like that so who is to say I would not do the same. Still I wanted to know why it was allowed by so many people.


Final Take: There is a quote that struck a chord in me in Tuesday Tells it Slant "They were returns, unwanted books, and Tuesday could never understand how anyone on earth could return a book that they had purchased. Books were prized possessions to Tuesday. Each one brought out a different side of her; each one meant something more and each one took her away from life for a while."

Which in turn brought up the question – have you ever returned a book? If so, for what reason? Or, like Tuesday, do you feel like books are "prized possessions?"

 

Plot ~ 3

Setting ~ 2

Dialogue ~ 4

Characters ~ 3

3 Quills!

Many thank yous to the author for providing me a copy of Tuesday Tells it Slant. I was not compensated for this review and receiving a copy of this book in no way influenced my opinion or review. Thank you.