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highly recommended |
A Wonderful Book 
I knew the author in New York City and recently came across her novel. She really captures the vulnerability that we all had as young ladies trying to build our lives with very little money. I really enjoyed the novel and the relationship with the "Famous Actor" is so perfectly described and truly heart wrenching. Yvette (the main character) is very sympathetic and you root for her to find happiness. Much of the book made me laugh too, because we were so silly and naive. Loved it!
DREAMY, INDEED!
I was intoxicated by DeLaune's language and rhythm from the first page. Her characters kept me company to a beach resort last May. And when I got back to LA --- I was longing for them. Memorable!!!
So Close and Yet So Far
Delaune Michel captures brilliantly in her first novel what it feels like to be an intelligent, hard working, talented young woman on the seemingly endless verge of success, self actualization, or any measure of happiness. Whether in New York or Los Angeles, I journeyed arm-in-arm emotionally with lead character Yvette, as she made her way through a seductive yet treacherous decade ~ admitted into a world of accomplishment, fame, and pleasure, but always and only as a guest, never allowed to take up permanent residence. I've been there in my own life: walking up the drive, looking through the windows, tasting the food, spending the occasional heady night, yet returning every time to the crummy apartment in the bad neighborhood, the menial job, the dream that somehow failed every time to become reality. I'd not re-live those years for anything, but knowing there are writers like Michel who give breath and life and honor to such women (and they are everywhere) helps salve the sometimes difficult memories and makes me smile.
Of Waking & Dreaming & Finding Oneself
I read this book in two days, dropping everything. I could relate to Yvette on so many levels, growing up in Southern California and being stuck in a dream about life and love on the heels of deep personal loss. This is a beautiful story in its hunger for an eternal love that cannot be in the way Yvette dreams it, but is there in the way it can be.
This story is as much about love as it is growing up and through it all I felt like Yvette is a friend. She reminds me so much of a best friend of mine who dated these larger than life men and found herself lonelier for it. But here Yvette is bigger than my friend for she sees the good in what she has with this man and gets past the pain and triumphs as a woman and an artist.
Life from the inside.
This is a book written by a woman, about a woman, with a woman's occasionally grimace-inducing candor, but sorry, I don't see it as a "woman's book." (And what's with "chick lit"? Is it just me or does that phrase seem downright condescending?). This is simply a GOOD BOOK, a great story with a compelling lead character, a detailed sense of time and place, a smart way with words and attitudes, and a deeply compassionate view of...people, male and female. I don't know why men don't seem to read or like books like this; maybe because most men don't know about mercy-f**ks or compulsive caretaking or needing to be the good-girl or struggling to find your way in a world that uses words like "whiny" and "weepy" when talking about women's emotions, but whatever it is, men are missing out. This book is a heartfelt, passionate and bone-achingly truthful story, one that many, many women will identify with and men might find enlightening. Yvette is an arty, brave, and very human Every-Girl, with deeply felt flaws and oh-so-errant ways, but her slightly bent and very real journey is one we want to follow because...well, she's slightly bent and very real! Yay! No feminist proselytizing, no man bashing, no weepy, whiny carrying on, just a girl makin' jewelry, looking for love, and trying to get it right. So despite her personal chaos and dubious decision-making, we like her! She inspires us and makes us want to take her out for coffee. Ms. Michel has written a character we never fail to feel tenderly toward; a women who falls down many of the same flights of stairs others have known and hated, but who does so with such authenticity, we can't help but wish her well and hope for the best along with her. I closed this book feeling deeply satisfied, delighted that I had just read something chewy and worthy and clever and funny and touching and insightful. Congratulations, Ms. Michel...write on.
reviews: page 1, 2, 3
Hypnotic and beautifully written, Aftermath of Dreaming is an incandescent first novel of odern life and love. Other than the little problem that she is waking up screaming in the middle of the night, life is wonderful for Yvette Broussard. Her jewelry-design career is taking off, she's back with her sort-of boyfriend, and, best of all, she no longer thinks about her once-in-a-lifetime love, international movie star Andrew Madden. Until a chance encounter with him changes everything. Swept up by memories of their complex relationship, Yvette is plunged into an obsession with Andrew that ultimately forces her to confront the past she thought she had left behind. At the same time, she is juggling the demands of her bride-to-be sister and her male best friend, who is jealous of other men, and thoughts of her estranged father. Set against the glittering worlds of Los Angeles and New York, and told with both humor and pathos, Aftermath of Dreaming explores the universal themes of abandonment, forgiveness, and letting go.
aftermath of dreaming, aftermath, dreaming
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