This book definately got very mundane in the details of this family's life and would have been easy to put down. My interest was that it involved the raising of a child with a disability and how that can completely become the focus of a mother to the neglect of the rest of the family. This is currently being done by thousands of families caught in the autism epidemic, following false claims of cure, just like the character in this book. Although set in the past it is still extremely relevant and gives a history of what life was like before IDEA, which was the law giving all children the right to a free and appropriate education.

This book has many elements I enjoyed: characters develop and change, you see details of their day to day lives (making biscuits, bathing children), and it explored important issues like race and the care of children with disabilities.

But it was not a book I wanted to just keep reading. It's pace was varied- sometimes too slow, other times leaving you curious regarding the details not given. And while sometimes it brought you close to the heart and mind of the main character, it too often felt very distanced for a book written from her perspective. I put it down several times to read other things, but the story was compelling enough that I wanted to finish it (I'm not afraid to just quit books if they don't feel worth my time).

I liked this book about a mother, Jewel, raising five children with her husband. She then gives birth to a down's syndrome baby which changes her relationship with her children and husband in unexpected ways. As a mother, I could relate to how much Jewel loved all her children. But she was forced to put her special needs child ahead of everyone else. However, the book seemed to be awful wordy and overwrought and, at times, I found myself losing interest.

Too difficult to read because of the use of the N word

Although I looked forward to reading this book too much use of the N word turned me off in the beginning. I have no idea why the author used the term and have yet understand why Oprah considered it in her book club. I think other words such as colored or black would have held interest.

This book was a requirement for a multicultural graduate class. I selected it from a list of options because it's been sitting on my bookshelf for years waiting to be read.

It was a very slow read! I had trouble connecting with the characters, and I feel like the author drug out descriptions needlessly. It was very wordy. I also feel like it had very little action/climax; the story just kind of limped along.

I gave three stars because I did enjoy some aspects: Jewel's growth as a person, the interesting aspect of the novel spanning her lifetime, a fairly interesting story about past views of DS, and the back and forth narration through time.

I've always thought marriage went thru stages and the story contained in Jewel is a clear example. Jewel is an amazing woman, strong and courageous and devoted in her love for her husband and her family. She does what she believes is best for her Down Syndrome daughter and realizes the sacrifices she's made her five children make because of her youngest daughter. Yet, no where in the story does any family member, save her husband, feel that a sacrifice was made on their part. Orphaned at age 11, Jewel's marriage to Leston awakened memories she had of her mother and father, her tyrannt of a grandmother and her longing for a loving family. Another stage began with the birth of her children; another with the birth of her youngest daughter; another in staging the move to California, moving back to Mississippi and again to California. I thought it was beautifully written and portrayed to what extent a mother will go for her child.

At his best, Bret Lott shows the talent for becoming a world-class short story writer. In Jewel, though, he abandons many of his strengths as a writer (Carver-like minimalism, incisive social vision, etc.) for more mediocre territory. For the most part, the characters and situations in the novel come across as very authentic (in fact, the climactic marital challenge faced by Jewel and Leston near the end was a high point), but what meager dramatic structure the novel has is often obscured by the unrelentingly reflective, ponderous tone of Jewel's first-person narration. I'm not sorry I read the book, but I won't read it a second time and am not likely to recommend it to many people outside the Oprah-reader crowd.

I was so happy to FINALLY get through this book. I always feel obligated to finish books I start but had a tough time with this one. The story is a good one but written in a way that jumps back and forth between the protagonist's childhood and adulthood which I didn't care for. It did get much better late in the book but I've come to the conclusion that Oprah and I have a difference of opinion regarding praiseworthy books.

I loved every bit of this book. I thought the author did a good job of developing various characters' awareness and adjusting their behavior accordingly ... again staying true to reality in that some people cannot or do not break old habits while others learn and grow through travels and life experiences. I did not find the language offensive because it was used as would've been genuinely spoken by people based on the region/year of the given chapter. The reason I could not go with five stars is that there's a key segment of Jewel's life that the author skipped over, and because I felt like he did not develop the concept of the major theme (how God smiles on us as individuals) clearly enough.

Each chapter in this novel begins with a scene in the present, goes to a character-defining flashback brought on by something as simple as a word or a touch, and then comes back to round out the rest of the present situation. Jewel, the title character, narrates her story of life after--and before--giving birth to her sixth child, Brenda Kay, who has Down Syndrome. Jewel questions the character of a God who would allow this trial in her life, but falls back on what her past experiences have taught her: that she can fix situations, fix her own life. Now she arms herself with the belief that she can fix her daughter and sets out on a life-long, no-holds-barred journey to do exactly that. Interesting thoughts on devotion to family, husband/wife roles, what it means to have "quality of life," and how a person is shaped by past experiences.

A really good story although a little slow at times. I was glad that the author was not politically correct and actually had the characters say things that they would have said back then. IE "nigger", "cracker", and "Mongolian Idiot".
This is the story of Jewel who has been through a lot of hardship in the first 39 years of her like. At the beginning of the book we find out she is pregnant. She then gives birth to a child with Downs Syndrome that she refuses to institutionalize and does everything in her power to make life better for. However sometimes this comes at the price of losing others that she loves and is close to.

I gave Jewel 2 1/2 stars. It was a long saga of a family (from 1940 - 1984) who lived in Purvis, Louisana during WW2, and whose sixth child was born a Down's Syndrom child - (called "Mongoloid idiot" in those days). There life story covers Jewel, the mother, doing everything she could think, read, hear about to help her daughter, Brenda Kay. She created an amazing mother-daughter relationship that was her primary concern in life - her other children and husband struggling to get through life mostly on their own. Some very tender scenes are included and make one wonder what else would a mother would do?
I only gave it 2 1/2 stars because most paragraphs were overly discriptive - I found myself skipping whole parts of a chapter knowing it was only describing what was already decribed before in the story - very frustrating. I am glad I finished it - there was a lot of good in it.