No One Ever Asked by Katie Ganshert
Challenging perceptions of discrimination and prejudice, this emotionally resonant drama for readers of Lisa Wingate and Jodi Picoult explores three different women navigating challenges in a changing school district--and in their lives.
When an impoverished school district loses its accreditation and the affluent community of Crystal Ridge has no choice but to open their school doors, the lives of three very different women converge: Camille Gray--the wife of an executive, mother of three, long-standing PTA chairwoman and champion fundraiser--faced with a shocking discovery that threatens to tear her picture-perfect world apart at the seams. Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption but she is struggling with a happily-ever-after so much harder than she anticipated. Twenty-two-year-old Anaya Jones--the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation she's stepped into. Tensions rise within and without, culminating in an unforeseen event that impacts them all. This story explores the implicit biases impacting American society, and asks the ultimate question: What does it mean to be human? Why are we so quick to put labels on each other and categorize people as "this" or "that", when such complexity exists in each person?
My Review:
People will be asking you about recent events in our country after reading No One Ever Asked, a Christian drama written by Ganshert when three women's lives are connected by one action of the town they live in.
What I Liked:
What I Liked:
Ganshert starts the book off with a bang, literally. It was only the prologue, but attention-getting. I felt that it set the pace for the entire novel and couldn't wait to read more. Ganshert took real word events, such as the prologue where I thought immediately the Boston Marathon bombing. By adding similar events to the fictional world, it gave me more or less an image to relate to while reading the book. Every problem the characters faced in their own lives are what people are facing every day. After the prologue, we are taken back to a year before the event happens. Ganshert separated the time frame in a way that she let us know we were getting close to the day that the action took place. Not once did we have to guess where and at what point we were at during the story. We all knew the incident at the color run would be happening soon as we moved along.
Ganshert took us more into the heads of the characters by giving them personal struggles mixed in with those in the bigger picture. It was nice to get away from how everyone was being affected by one thing going on in the town and seeing how individuals were coping with how their world was turning upside down.
A twist taking us away from all the problems in the town was how Ganshert added fun, little twitter conversations as chapters. Granted, there were times I found it confusing because I didn't know who these people were talking and felt they were coming out of nowhere, but the more I read, the more levity it brought to a story that was already heavy with drama.
My favorite characters were Taylor and Anaya. Taylor was the oldest daughter of Camille and Neil, who wanted to be very independent. She didn't seem to fit in with the Gray family and I don't blame her for acting towards her mother the way she did. She saw her mother have racist tendencies, even though she claimed not to and defied what the mother said because she knew what was right. Anaya had been through the struggles and continued to go through them as she got the teaching job. She got where she was through hard work and was able to handle all the negativity with her head held up. Ganshert really had us feeling for them and rooting for them to overcome everything they went through.
What I Didn't Like:
The repetitiveness of drama in Camille's family. First with her husband leaving and then twice landing in the hospital because of something happening to her children. Ganshert should've picked a different character for one of the incidents to happen to, rather than after Taylor being in the hospital, it then being Austin, her younger brother. Camille was a horrible character and I couldn't take to at all. She claimed to be fair to everyone, but she never really was. And then to have her go through the moments where she could've lost her kids, why? Why was it all about Camille? It's supposed to be about three different women, but to me, it felt it was all about Camille and it took away my interest.
Camille's daughter, Paige, was horrible for her age, 8. What was Ganshert trying to get at with making her behave like she was the princess who could get away with anything she wanted? Didn't this kid have any discipline? It didn't seem so to me.
Sad to say, the action from the prologue was all there was in the book. Here I was, waiting to get towards the end to find out what happened at the color run. I was expecting some explosion, something really huge that would shake everyone's world. Ganshert didn't give any of that. Instead, it was over quickly, almost the point where I felt she rushed to get the book done and didn't care how it ended. If only she kept up the pace of the action from the beginning, the ending would've been able to hold my interest.
Rated:
4 out of 5 stars. It had it's moments, but for the most part I really enjoyed reading about real newsworthy events being brough into the novel. I recommend it to anyone who loves a drama filled book filled with events you lived through.
I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.
Ganshert took us more into the heads of the characters by giving them personal struggles mixed in with those in the bigger picture. It was nice to get away from how everyone was being affected by one thing going on in the town and seeing how individuals were coping with how their world was turning upside down.
A twist taking us away from all the problems in the town was how Ganshert added fun, little twitter conversations as chapters. Granted, there were times I found it confusing because I didn't know who these people were talking and felt they were coming out of nowhere, but the more I read, the more levity it brought to a story that was already heavy with drama.
My favorite characters were Taylor and Anaya. Taylor was the oldest daughter of Camille and Neil, who wanted to be very independent. She didn't seem to fit in with the Gray family and I don't blame her for acting towards her mother the way she did. She saw her mother have racist tendencies, even though she claimed not to and defied what the mother said because she knew what was right. Anaya had been through the struggles and continued to go through them as she got the teaching job. She got where she was through hard work and was able to handle all the negativity with her head held up. Ganshert really had us feeling for them and rooting for them to overcome everything they went through.
What I Didn't Like:
The repetitiveness of drama in Camille's family. First with her husband leaving and then twice landing in the hospital because of something happening to her children. Ganshert should've picked a different character for one of the incidents to happen to, rather than after Taylor being in the hospital, it then being Austin, her younger brother. Camille was a horrible character and I couldn't take to at all. She claimed to be fair to everyone, but she never really was. And then to have her go through the moments where she could've lost her kids, why? Why was it all about Camille? It's supposed to be about three different women, but to me, it felt it was all about Camille and it took away my interest.
Camille's daughter, Paige, was horrible for her age, 8. What was Ganshert trying to get at with making her behave like she was the princess who could get away with anything she wanted? Didn't this kid have any discipline? It didn't seem so to me.
Sad to say, the action from the prologue was all there was in the book. Here I was, waiting to get towards the end to find out what happened at the color run. I was expecting some explosion, something really huge that would shake everyone's world. Ganshert didn't give any of that. Instead, it was over quickly, almost the point where I felt she rushed to get the book done and didn't care how it ended. If only she kept up the pace of the action from the beginning, the ending would've been able to hold my interest.
Rated:
4 out of 5 stars. It had it's moments, but for the most part I really enjoyed reading about real newsworthy events being brough into the novel. I recommend it to anyone who loves a drama filled book filled with events you lived through.
I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.
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