A Solitary Blue

by Cynthia Voigt

Hardcover, 1983

Status

Check shelf

Call number

SC Vo

Publication

Atheneum (1983), Edition: Reissue, 204 pages

Description

Jeff's mother, who deserted the family years before, reenters his life and widens the gap between Jeff and his father, a gap that only truth, love, and friendship can heal.

Local notes

0000-0737-6083

User reviews

LibraryThing member rachelellen

One of my favorite things about the way Cynthia Voigt writes is that she will occasionally tell about the same events, in separate books, from different points of view. A Solitary Blue follows the life of Dicey's friend Jeff, through his early childhood well before he knows Dicey, as he deals with

disillusionment and his parents' divorce and learns not to shut himself off from the world just because the world has the capability to hurt him.

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LibraryThing member SockMonkeyGirl

This is actually my favorite book in the Tillerman story. It follows the story of Jeff, Dicey Tillerman's friend/boyfriend, from his childhood right up to about the time he meets the Tillermans. I liked Jeff from Dicey's Song, but seeing the story from his perspective was incredible. I felt so

sorry for the sad little boy whose mother keeps breaking his heart. His journey tugs at my heart strings and elicits a satisfied sigh at the end.

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LibraryThing member tjsjohanna

Wow, what a powerful story. Jeff is such a quiet, "make no trouble" kind of kid and this story is told in that same kind of quiet way. But the emotional impact of his story is huge. I keep thinking about how parents shape the emotional lives of their children and how very easy it is to completely

mess it up when the motives of the adult are centered on themselves rather than on their kids. One of the most interesting things about this story came at the end when Jeff's story intersected with Dicey's and I realized who Jeff was. In Dicey's Song I saw Jeff as this regular boy who had the maturity to be patient with Dicey's volatile nature. Through his eyes I realize he is just as hurt in his way as she is in hers. Changes my perspective entirely.

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LibraryThing member br13jaso

This summer I read A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt. The main character Jeff lives with his mother Melody, and his father to whom he calls Profesor. Melody is a kind, caring parent to Jeff, but his father on the other hand it the total opposite. He is barely a father at all to Jeff and only cares

about himself and his job. Jeff is sometimes even afraid to have a conversation with him.

One day Jeff comes home from school to find a letter on the kitchen table for his mother. she had left him and his father to go live her life outside of their small town. Jeff didn't know how to move on with his life without a mother and with a father who paid close to no attention to him. Jeff was heartbroken.

Then years later he gets an invitation from his mother asking if he would like to go and spend his summer vacation with her in Charleston, North Carolina. She is very kind and caring to him again, but if she loved him why did she leave? The next summer he went down again to visit and his mother pays no attention to him and he feels betrayed. All she cared about was her new boyfriend, not about her son she hasn't seen in a year. But having this betrayal might help him regain his relationship with his father in the end.

I feel the author did a very good job with this book. It was not the best I have ever read, but not the worst. i like the characters and the message, but it was a bit boring. that might be because I like books that have a lot of exciting things around every corner but it was definitely not one of those books. I thought the author could have made it a bit more exciting maybe a some more characters or just something to grab the reader's attention more.

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LibraryThing member peggygillman

The third in the Tillerman series. Jeff’s story with a very selfish, clueless mother who knows nothing about love but verbalizes how much she loves Jeff and his father who loves Jeff deeply but doesn’t have the ability to communicate that love. Toward the end of the story, Jeff connects with

Dicey. 7/29

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LibraryThing member splinfo

A young man's coming of age story. LH

LibraryThing member abcrane

Beautiful wetlands imagery and a challenged home life, Voigt explores needs of a teenage boy and his transition into manhood. A Newberry Honor book from 1984, Jeff's story is timeless and will appeal to teens coming from a broken home looking to decide who they are and what they are capable of.

This book lends itself to either being read as a standalone or an offshoot of the Tillerman series (Homecoming, Dicey's Song, etc.).

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LibraryThing member lycomayflower

A favorite from childhood that I just have to reread every once in a while. The characterization is amazingly deft without ever bogging the reader down in navel-gazing. Great coming-of-age stuff, and particularly good at portraying an emotionally troubled childhood which works out okay. I

especially love the way the novel gives space for each of its characters to become and be exactly who they are meant to be.

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LibraryThing member pennykaplan

A side character, Jeff, in the Tillerman series, is the focus of this book. Abandoned by his Mother and neglected by his oblivious Professor father, Jeff, in essence, raises himself. Two summer vacations with his Mom bring crushing disappointment and a much deeper understanding of himself, his

aloneness, and the growth of his ability to reach out to others including his father and the Tillermans.

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LibraryThing member electrascaife

This entry in the Tillerman Family series tells the story not of one of the Tillermans, but of Jeff, a friend they meet living near their Gran's home. True to Voigt's other books, the story is excellently told and you fall headlong into love and sympathy for Jeff and his father. I heartily

recommend the whole series.

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LibraryThing member fingerpost

"A Solitary Blue" is the third book in the series known as The Tillerman Cycle. In the first two books, the protagonist is Dicey Tillerman. In the third book, the central character isn't a Tillerman at all, but is Jeff Green, a boy introduced in "Dicey's Song," who goes to her school and is drawn

to her.
The book begins long before that. The first half is the contrasting images of Jeff's father, the Professor, who loves him with all his heart, but is a deeply introverted man who never shows his emotions. He doesn't know how to show Jeff the love he feels. And there is Jeff's mother, Melody, who is a master at manipulating people to get what she wants. She is bubbly, outgoing, beautiful, and really doesn't love Jeff at all, but completely willing to manipulate him to get whatever she wants.
In the second half, Jeff has finally figured his mother out and rejected her. He and his father move into a small house on the water's edge, near a quiet little town. They both find contentment there. And it is there that Jeff eventually meets Dicey, who doesn't appear until the last quarter of the book.
Excellent, but I didn't like it quite as well as the first two books, mainly because I loathed Melody so much.

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