Loving Donovan

My friend had a girls night at her house earlier this week and gift bags were given out and in each bag there was a book fitting to the recipient. My cousin received Loving Donovan in her bag and since I'm such a Bernice McFadden fan I begged her to let me read it. Seeing that, I was without cable

this weekend (don't ask)I decided to read it through. This story made me forget all about my hatred for Comcast.

I have been in love with Bernice McFadden's work since I read Sugar and This Bitter Earth. McFadden just has a way of weaving her character's lives together. By "weave together" I mean on the movie Crash type level. Our main characters are Campbell and Donovan. McFadden has split up the book into three parts Her, Him, and Them. I really liked Campbell. She was calm, smart, and logical with a genuine sweetness to her. She never came across as thirsty, desperate, or bitter. She remained "grounded" even though she saw her mother trying to hold on to a dead relationship most of her childhood. Rita "Luscious", Campbell's grandmother/aunt was the character whose pain just came off the page and hit you in the face. Luscious didn't carry her misfortunes in life has a baggage they seemed to make her love more purely.

Donovan comes across as this cynical, indifferent, nonchalant black man but when you take a look at his past we can see where all this comes from. Behind the wall Donovan has built, there is a man that wants to be loved and who wants to love someone but he just can't get past his inner demons that he has carried from childhood into adulthood. There comes a point in the story that I just want to shake him and scream in his face. He's just one of those men that can't really give over to love because he had to much hurt to work past. He too was saw his mother and father's marriage spin out of control. He saw his father be a "jelly back" in his marriage and with his grandmother. Grammy, Donovan's grandmother, is this manipulative, controlling woman who prides herself on keeping the men in her life corralled.

Donovan and Campbell's relationship was like a roller coaster it was high but when it dropped is was sudden and devastating. In classic McFadden fashion, this story contains real issues that all women face. This was not some "sappy" love story it was real life. These characters faced relationship anguish, teen pregnancy, suicide, depression, abortion, molestation, and death. Do not get me wrong this book is not all sad it has that element of the resilient, strong, and empowered black woman. McFadden has a way of bringing the most broken women up out of their ashes.

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LibraryThing member mdbrady

Another compelling novel by an African American writer featuring the stories of a man and woman, each emotionally scarred as a child, reaching out to each other with love.

Bernice McFadden is the author of ten novels, several of which have won literary prizes. She is one of my favorite African

American writers. Her prose is spare and powerful, moving easily between characters and their pasts. The people in her book are vividly alive, believable, and complex. She does not hide their pain, but her calm, understated manner of describing it is compelling. And for her, pain can be transcended, in this book as in the others I have read by her. McFadden never denies pain but she is essentially a hopeful writer.

Loving Donovan is divided into three section; Her, Him, and Them. The first sections deal separately with Campbell and Donovan growing up in Brooklyn, not far from each other but never meeting. Both belong to solidly working-class families, but both families are torn by violence and lack of love. When they meet, both Campbell and Donovan have created successful lives for themselves, but they are still seeking love. At first they seem to find it with each other, but their pasts haunt them. The book’s ending is unconventional, but I thought perfect. (The fact that my plot summary is full of “but” is a clue to the human contradictions that McFadden depicts.)

While this book is set firmly within the African American community, it is not about segregation or racial interaction as some of McFadden’s books have been. Instead it is a narrative of individuals and families; a narrative that none of us can pretend can only happen to other people.

I enthusiastically recommend Loving Donovan, and others by McFadden.

Akashic Books is to be congratulated for reissuing the books of this fine writer. I am grateful to them for sending a copy of McFadden’s latest to read and review.

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LibraryThing member DonnasBookAddiction

This book was SOOOO GOOOOD! I enjoyed Bernice's writing style. It's not poetically overdrawn and has enough spice with such reality that keeps you hooked on the story. I love the more modern setting of the book and the well developed characters. It was very clever how she left an air of mystery as

to wheither or not Campbell was the little girl outside singing "Over the Rainbow" on that hot day when Donovan was molested by Clyde. The book ended the only way it could have, but his way of dealing with the problem is what made the book so original and real. Only God or a therapist could have saved Donovan from his past and his character was not one to seek either. This book affected me emoitonally long after I had finished. I am forever a Bernice McFadden fan.

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LibraryThing member Esta1923

"Loving Donovan" by Bernice L. McFadden is a remarkable book that I reread as soon as I had finished it.

The book's cover announces "with a new introduction by Terry McMillan." This, and the "Author's Note" set the stage for McFadden's Prologue. And the prologue? I returned to it after I finished

the book.

Reading we hear the voices of two people. The "her" is Capbell. She tells what her life was like 1973-1980. Donovan, the "him,"is seven years old when his story begins, twenty-one when it pauses for us.

Campbell and Donavon meet as adults. Their relationship (1999-2000) is a complicated one. We watch them, perhaps remembering our young days.

There is a one page Epilogue. I read it aloud, and listened to my own voice.

~~~~~~~~I have three pages of notes I made during my first reading. No need to put them here. Each reader will find parts of the book haunting.

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LibraryThing member phonelady61

I think was definitely a story about a man who has difficulty in life period and the author has written from that . the book was okay but not really my thing or my usual read which is okay cause we all need to expand our realm of reading so to speak . all in all I liked the book and would recommend

it to anyone and will .

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LibraryThing member kellifrobinson

Loving Donovan is a quick and easy read with anything but quick and easy subject matter. The lightness of touch of the difficult subject matter by the author left me initially wanting more depth. After letting the book marinate for a day or two, however, I realized that this unconventional love

story is very sad and affecting and lingers in the subconscious. Ironically, I finished the book on Valentine's Day. This story is a reminder that each of us carries around a unique history that ultimately runs through our blood, bones, heart, and mind. That history will have a great impact on our interactions with others and will, undoubtedly, influence the success or failure of our relationships. Bernice L. McFadden makes you question the "why."

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LibraryThing member lauranav

Wow. What a wonderful book. It is well written and moving, and even though it's filled with broken people, abuse, struggles, despair, it just sweeps along and keeps going because that's what life does. The things other people do to us, the things we do to ourselves, the ways we can't explain why

we're messed up or how to salvage something good, it's all here. Not an easy read in some ways. But so easy to read it, because it's so well written and the people are so real. And a good reminder that when people don't act rationally, you don't know all of what made them that way, The people and the events that led to the rules people make for themselves are usually well hidden.

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LibraryThing member mclane

This is the third book I have read by Bernice L. McFaddden and, while it was interesting and enjoyable, it does not measure up to her other works. The book is divided into three parts: Her, Him, and Them. Since it is a love story, the sections pretty much tell the direction the book is heading in.

The story traces the life of Campbell (Her) and Donovan (Him), who, although they grow up in the same neighborhood, don't meet and connect until they are adults. McFadden excels in character development, and this novel is no exception. However, after investing so much time in the explication of the lives of these two characters, the ending section (Them) seems rushed and unfinished. Another weakness is that there is not a single strong, responsible male character in the book. Fathers, brothers, sons and lovers are all weak, vacillating or downright evil. This takes away from the overall strength of this novel.

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LibraryThing member Jenxy21

I won Loving Donovan was a Early Review copy. It's the story of Campbell and Donovan; of love and loss. McFadden pens a gripping, gritty story of how circumstances re-route our course and how we deal with the rocky road of love and life. The alternating views of Campbell and Donovan serve to draw

the reader into their lives before their paths cross. The reader cheers for both characters and anxiously awaits their story. This is a great read that I recommend to those who love a tale that speaks of real life chances.

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LibraryThing member WKinsey

I received a copy of Loving Donovan as an early review from Library THING.Loving Donovan is a story of love,loss and despair.It parallels the love story of Him and Her to Them. This powerful books sucks you in at page one and dosent leave you go go until its end. It leaves you wanting more. This is

my first book by Ms. McFadden but it wont be my last.

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

This romantic and realistic fiction, in three parts: Campbell (her), Donovan (him), and Them (together), is filled with the anguish of two lovers from broken childhoods that included sexual abuse, grandmotherly domination, and pregnancy at fifteen. Campbell takes her pain and creates collages, but

Donovan is stymied and stuck. When they meet, there's hope in their joining. The writing is tense and filled with almost disbelief at the ability for these two broken people to try to make each other compensation for all the wrongs.

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