A different era, a different world
June 10, 2014
Format:Paperback|Verified Purchase

A provocative novel set in an era of reckless abandon with a lack of child protective agencies. It would be easy to embrace a lack of compassion for the adults in the novel and indeed I did until the closing chapter. Yates was able, in a few sentences, to shift the story from an abused and parentified child to a family who figured out how to survive their internalized chaos. Excellent

I believe in angels, too May 20, 2014
Format:Paperback

Prepare to get hit right in the feels by J. Dylan Yates. Jules grows up in the 70's in an abusive household, and Szaja, well--let's just say that he defines the word survivor. I particularly enjoyed how Yates vividly weaves the narrative through the dual historical contexts (and please don't get mad at me for my use of the word historical, but the 70's were over four decades ago!). You're there with Szaja in the 1920's Ukraine when the soldiers attack, and you're there with Jules as she somehow survives the 1970's in small-town, coastal Massachusetts with a seriously messed-up, hippie mom. Bravo to J. Dylan Yates on her debut novel.

Horror and then compassion - because trauma has a way of trickling down through the generations when we don't address it.
June 17, 2014
Verified Purchase
This review is from: The Belief in Angels (Kindle Edition)

I tend to assess a book by three criteria: first by whether the storyline appeals to me, and then by the quality of the writing and how much it holds my attention once I start. So when my husband told me that a friend of his who I had never met had written a book, I based my decision on whether or not to read it by the plotline. As a former doctor who changed careers because I was interested in the mind body connection and peoples' stories of survival, I was immediately drawn to it. And once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I read it in two days.

The book takes us in with Jules as she grows up in a home filled with turmoil from domestic violence. There is a great deal of trauma in Jules' life, of a kind that continues to exist under the radar in our culture way more than it should. We also learn of her grandfather's life and experiences during the Holocaust. Dylan is able to help you stay in the present, and in your body, through the way she describes her main characters because she endears them to you as their experiences wrench your heart. She makes you cheer them on and wish you could rescue and protect them from harm. Despite all that happens in their lives (as in our own), the will to live is remarkable and you feel the resilience amidst the terror and overwhelm. This privilege of witnessing two intimate journeys is what kept pulling me in.

I have a special interest in trauma and its effects, particularly when it happens early in our lives. This is a book that portrays the courage imbedded deep within us as human beings that enables us to survive the unbearable. The author weaves the stories of challenge and survival, and of finding one's strength despite it all, in a beautiful, artfully detailed and honest way. Jules' has special qualities, and there are good things that happen in her life, which make all the difference for her. The interweaving of the pain with the gifts also helped me, as the reader, to carry on. And to keep wanting to check in on Jules, as though I was somehow supporting her by continuing to listen to - and witness - her story.

Dylan's style, and Jules' perspectives, allowed me to have my feelings of outrage at her parents' abusive and irresponsible behaviors, which wreak such havoc and terror on her, her siblings, and one another. An unexpected twist comes at the end of the book, when you get a glimpse of Wendy (Jules' mom)'s story. It is hard to let go of the outrage, but something begins to crack that perception as you discover, like a teenager on the verge of adulthood sometimes does, the first details of Wendy's life. These are details that had a great influence on shaping the way she is.

This is a book that introduces the profound complexity of trauma and how it affects us, from one generation to the next. When we stay unaware and are unable to resolve the effects of trauma in our lives, it can blind us to the ways we repeat and reenact our pain. It blinds us to our behaviors and beliefs, and trickles down (or in this case pours out like a geiser) to disrupt the lives of those we love. While a part of us wants to blame Jules' parents for their horrifying choices and mistakes, the author invites us to begin to feel compassion for the unbearable in their own lives that have lead them to become who they are. This is what I believe to be one of the most special and unexpected gifts of this book. I hear there is more to come in the sequel, which I can't wait to read.

I highly recommend this book.
May 5, 2014
This review is from: The Belief in Angels (Paperback)

The Belief in Angels is superbly written. Dylan Yates is a master storyteller. She has wonderful descriptive skills. Her book is full of human emotion and tenderness, speaks from the soul. It is remarkable how Jules, the main character thrives in spite of growing
up in a severe dysfunctional family, where there is family violence, lack of boundaries, children exposed to inappropriate sexual behavior and neglect. There is role reversal, Jules becomes the parent ant takes care of her brothers. A gripping story, I couldn't
put it down.

Angels very much needed.
April 22, 2014
This review is from: The Belief in Angels (Paperback)

It is quite remarkable that children can survive self-centered, abusive, neglectful parents to grow, if not blossom, into self determination and adulthood. Couples, married or not, should be obliged to enroll in a how-to-nurture-children-properly course before contemplating parenthood. There’s no question that Julianne’s (Jules), the main character of J.Dylan Yates, debut novel, The Belief In Angels, parents would not pass any course other than a go-straight-to-jail entrance exam for the brutal treatment of their children.

Despite the grimness of the narrative this is a story where good does eventually find a way to triumph over adversity (evil) and for a first time novelist, J. Dylan Yates, has excellent descriptive skills and tells a story that involves the reader from the first page to the last.

The story begins in Withensea, Massachusetts, in 1979 when Jules Finn is 18 years-of-age and is about to leave her Cape Cod home to go to college.

Jules, in a reflective mood, muses about her childhood with brothers, David and Moses, likening their family life to the salt spray battered houses in need of care and maintenance in the seaside town where they live. This comparison sets the scene well for the recollections that are to come.

The narration segues back to 1967 and the ongoing marital battles that occur between Jules’ parents, Howard and Wendy, violent, quite possibly crazy weirdos. Howard and Wendy’s raisonne d’etre is to extort money from Samuel, the children’s grandfather, to fund their erratic dissipated lifestyle, care of their children is a low priority.

Jules loves her grandparents and would be very happy if she and her brothers could live with them. Frightened to tell her grandfather the truth about the treatment they receive at home, a horsewhip is used for punishment, Jules does whatever it takes to survive without incurring the anger of her parents.

Samuel, a Jewish tailor, does his best to protect his grandchildren from the excesses of their alcoholic nutcase parents but sadly, he has his own demons to exorcise. In the 1920’s while still a young man, he suffered the horror of the Ukranian pogroms – Jews terrorized and murdered by Ukranian units of the Red Army and his later internment in the Majdanek Death Camp where the circumstances of his survival caused trauma which he has never fully recovered from.

Samuel’s story is interleaved with Jule’s recollections of family life – some of it extremely sad and painful to read.

Jules uses humour as a weapon to survive the hardships of her childhood as she battles along a path that has no turning until she can grasp the prize of self ownership. Tragedy strikes what could be described as a dysfunctional family but more realistically described as a hellish household – Jules youngest brother dies, she is grief stricken and it seems that like her grandfather, Samuel, she will forever be haunted by events from the past.

This is a story full of raw emotion, sometimes harrowing, it’s also the story of two characters, separated by a generation, who despite seemingly insurmountable odds have the resilience and courage to face whatever obstacles Fate selects to block their chances of attaining peace and happiness.

Author, J. Dylan Yates, doesn’t deal in happy outcomes but she does deal in well developed characters and believable dialogue in an absorbing narrative – The Belief In Angels is a touching inspiring read.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In Yates’ debut novel, a woman growing up in a dysfunctional family and her Holocaust-survivor grandfather are shaped by their experiences of surviving pain through moments of grace.

Julianne “Jules” Finn grows up in the 1960s and ’70s in the small Cape Cod town of Withensea with her two brothers and a set of terrible parents. Her Irish-Catholic father, Howard, drinks, gambles, and hits both wife and children. Her Jewish mother, Wendy, practices self-indulgence in all its most flamboyant hippie manifestations—especially after she and Howard divorce, and the family house devolves into a nonstop drugs, sex and drinking party. Jules and her brothers “became less like children and more like neglected pets,” with Jules (as the only girl) left to do the family’s grocery shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning, while also looking after her younger brother, Moses. When the unsupervised boy dies accidentally, Jules blames herself. In this, she has something in common with her grandfather Samuel, who carries a heavy load of guilt: He survived the Holocaust but failed to protect his grandchildren. Alternating sections from Jules’ and Samuel’s points of view follow their emotional journeys. Yates shows much skill in description, characterization and dialogue, and she’s insightful about the mental state of abused children, as when Jules learns to compartmentalize: “I began to see my life in parts. When something bad, or weird, or crazy happened, like my father having a gun and threatening my mother, I’d say to myself: This is the part where my father points a gun at my mother’s head.” Jules’ and Samuel’s voices are distinct; similarly, Yates vividly evokes time and place, whether it’s Samuel’s childhood among the apple and cherry orchards in the Ukraine, the bleakness of a Cape Cod tourist town in winter or Wendy’s psychedelic decorating style. Well-written.