Reviews

If I Told You Once by Judy Budnitz

humanblight's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

There is a craving within that just seeks retellings of fairytales.
It’s a struggle to find ones that actually read nicely, stylistically, and I think I spent most of this book having a problem with the childlike format. It dawned on me about halfway through, that this writing style was probably purposeful. That they were emulating the picture books that we read as children, but I still couldn’t stomach it.
It was the consistent, familial reminder that we can be detrimentally unaware of how our interior and exterior worlds converge that sustained when reading. There was so much gathered trauma, personal mythology, tales told to relive oneself of anguish, that the way each character related to one another was a presupposition that they all understood each others history, even when they had actively concealed it.
There was far too much time spent on cis-men. Would love to read a fairytale without them. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

fbroom's review against another edition

5.0

Lost my original summary, this is now some of what I remember:

This was an amazing journey. It helped that I didn't know anything about the book before. I just picked it up after seeing it on my Goodreads feed. It immediately pulled me in. The description of her "gray" village, the cold weather, her parents, her siblings, her everyday life in the village. The voice just drew me in and I wanted to know everything about Ilana. The fact that Ilana also wanted to leave and go somewhere better, me made even connect to her even more.

Ilana is the oldest child of Sachie and Wolf. They continued to have 7 more children after that. We learn about her birth. We learn about her strong mother. Her brother Ari. After a dangerous encounter with an army office, she gets an egg that glows and has a golden city inside it. She decides that she wants to see that city. She wants to move there. Once day after her beloved brother was taken by the army, Ilana decides that it's time to leave so she prepares and then leaves and doesn't look back.

She walks for days until she can't do it anymore. so she stops at a little house and this old lady takes her in and gives her a job until she gets better again. The lady though keeps this beautiful girl locked in a room where the men of the village come at night to see her. They’re not allowed to touch her though. This though backfires and these men over time lose their patience. They come at night and end up killing the old lady and go in to try and kidnap the girl. Ilana carries the girl and escape. She meets her brother on the run. But Ari is allowed and he also wants the girl and she starts screaming and this attracts attention. The army men find them, take the girl and Ari and leave Ilana. Ilana begs the office to let her have her brother. He makes an offer of giving back the brother if she sleeps him. He obviously doesn’t act on it and leaves Ilana alone helpless after he had taken what he wanted.

Moving forward, Ilana returns to her old village and find it burned down completely. Not a single thing is alive. She searches for their bodies and eventually finds them frozen while trying to hide from the dangers. So sad. She moves on onto her journey.

This time she arrives at a bigger village where she works for a strange artist who kills any husband who cheats on her by some elaborate test (more words here).

Ilana leaves the crazy artist and moves yet to another town, this time larger with roads and stuff. She sees everyone walking toward some kind of town hall so she follows them. There she witnesses someone on the stage getting murdered so she screams and tries to save him only to learn that this whole thing is just an act and this place is a theatre! Something she’s never seen. She follows the group around and watches all their shows. She falls in love with the lead actor. She learns that he also is leaving to this new world so they decide to meet at the ship. Some hiccups later (more words) and they finally meet only to realize that she doesn’t have papers and not a ticket but he gives her his sister’s ticket and they both go onboard.

This is where the novel is like a completely different novel now. Life in the states. It moves way faster than the previous chapters. She gives birth to two boys and she gets obsessed with them. Years later she gets pregnant by accident and this time she gives birth to a girl. From the start, she is partial to the boys and kind of doesn’t care for the little girl. This doesn’t help the girl later on. The war comes then and the two brothers enlist and die there. Ilana is never the same after this. Her husband also dies after learns about his family all gone as well.

The point of view now is from the girl. Many many many sad things happen (need a lot more words).

rlpietraszek's review

adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A beautifully written folklore novel

mikewa14's review against another edition

3.0

quirky and engaging - full review here
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/if-i-told-you-once-judy-budnitz.html

chapterchapter's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

midwinteraz's review against another edition

2.0

This is a multi-generational story of a family, told from the women's side, with a heavy sprinkling of magical realism throughout. While the prose was lovely, and the stories compelling, I found the characters to range from disturbing to downright abhorrent. How do these people function in normal society? It's a dark book with dark characters, not a light weekend read.

unaan's review

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

edboies's review against another edition

4.0

Starts out oh so good.

meganb_w's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

christythelibrarian's review against another edition

3.0

Budnitz writes in magical realism intended often as social commentary. The first third of this novel is extraordinary. At one point, the main character, who was born in a East European village goes to a port city in Western Europe, hoping to find her lover. Instead she finds the city deserted. She runs to the docks, and the ocean is dry with the tall sailing ships resting lopsidedly on the ocean floor. She flees in terror, later finding her lover in a different city. She tells him of this place she went to and he dismisses it as a dream. The rest of the book does not quite live up to the atmospheric attraction of this first section, but is still intriguing in its own way as it follows the main character's daughter and granddaughter.