Attain Morning Is A Long Time Coming (Summer Of My German Soldier, #2) Composed By Bette Greene Audio Books

first novel is so great this one seemed to have no real connection to it, Not worth the read. In the spirit of summer reading lists of yore, I thought I'd focus on another book that was on one of the many lists I went through.
Or rather the sequel to one of those booksMORNING IS A LONG TIME COMINGthe sequel to sitelinkSummer of My German Soldier.
Reading sitelinkSummer of My German Soldier kind of wrecked my twelveyearold self, I loved it, but man did it hurt, I was on Patty's side from the beginning and I was frankly horrified at the way her family treated her.
Particularly her atrocious mother. In fact, it was probably the pains she suffered at the hands of her parents that lingered in my heart far longer than the loss of her sweet friend.
I remember being outraged and bereft at the end of it, having come up hard against Patty's many injustices, both social and personal.
It's a beautiful book, but man does it hurt, Fortunately, this lovely sequel went a long way toward healing that hurt, Just as it did for Patty, And every time I read it it makes me want to go to sleep and wake up in Paris.


MORNING IS A LONG TIME COMING opens six years after the events of sitelinkSummer of My German Soldier.
Patty is graduating from Jenkinsville High and heading to visit her grandparents in Memphis to celebrate, While there, they present her with a check for college and she begins entertaining the possibility of fulfilling her dream and traveling to Europe to find Anton's mother.
Unable to set the circumstances of his death behind her, Patty longs to meet his family and explain her story to the mother of her friend.
Against the wishes of her family and the entire closeminded population of Jenkinsville, she sets sail for Europe, making a few friends on the voyage who help her come out of her shell a little and who remind her there is so much more to the world than Arkansas.
In Paris, Patty meets a young photographer and English instructor name Roger who opens up another view of the world to Patty.
And even as she experiences a happiness and freedom she has never known before, her obsession with Anton's death and with finding and meeting his mother rears its head, lurks in the back of her mind, pressing on her, prodding her to leave Paris and Roger for Germany and the possibilities it represents.


I love this book, It is such a simple, sweet story, And I love it as a sequel because, even set six years later, it addresses the implications of its predecessor with just as much gravity and attention as they deserve.
Patty was

just twelve years old when she met Anton, The fact that she has reached the legal age of adulthood has nothing on the power of the impressions that were made at that tender age.
At the same time, I was proud of how strong she'd gotten in the interim, She stood up to her mother and father, she defied everyone who ever told her she was dirt and she left them in the dust and traveled to the Old World, which for her was so breathtakingly new.
It's a fine line presenting a protagonist with a true obsession, And Patty was a slave to hers, But she was cognizant of it, That fact is what always strikes me about her, She knows it's killing her, dragging her under with its constant emotional assault, And yet she moves through it, trying to keep her head above water and do the right thing and accomplish what it takes to lay her ghosts to rest and move on with her life.
I love her for her doggedness and her earnestness, And I love Roger for his quintessential Frenchness and for the wholehearted and compassionate way he embraces life and Patty.


Few people read beyond the first book, Many don't even know this one exists and it deserves so much more than that, Recommended for fans of sitelinkEva Ibbotson particularly sitelinkA Song for Summer and sitelinkMadeleine L'Engle's sitelinkAnd Both Were Young.
I have VERY mixed emotions about this book, . on one hand I do not agree with the plot cycle whatsoever, Why was so much time spent on Patty in America Greene spent a third of the book on one month and the rest was aroundmonths.
Then it all went whooosshhh and now its over, I think homegirl got a little lazy with the last twenty pages,

On the other hand I can see why Patty really focuses on what she doesnt like or who doesnt like her.
One of her friends on the boat to Europe straight up called her out about how she doesnt realize how smart and beautiful she is, so maybe it is fitting that Europe was a speedy blur because she was finally living a life she enjoyed.


I will say one of my biggest hesitations is how this book straight up went into a harlequin soap opera vibe towards the end, again lazy writing seems to pull out cheap ploys.
Guess Im glad I got to knock it off my list, Stick with the first one, kids, This is a sequel to Summer of My German Soldier, Although in my opinion it is not nearly as great a story as the first, I do love that Patty remains the same character, onlyyears later.
And she is struggling to figure out who she is and breaking away from her parents' destructive influence.
I do miss Ruth I understand why Ruth was not in this book much, but I think she is one of the main characters that gave the previous book much of its greatness.
I do have to say I love this quote from which the book got its name:

Ruth says "Why, right there in Psalms it says: 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy.
joy cometh in the morning, '"

And then Patty says "I felt a rush of pain for the morning that had been so long in coming.
"

Patty did not have an easy life, and atshe has been through more hurt and sorrow than most.
I like that she is determined to go forward, The sequel to Bette Greene's National Book Award finalist Summer of My German Soldier,

Patty is now eighteen, and a high school graduatebut she cannot face her future until she comes to terms with her past.
She decides to go to Germany in search of Anton's mother, desperate for a connection to the man she loved and lost.
En route, she stops in Paris, where she meets Roger, And now she must think twice about her plannot only because of what she might find, but because of what she must leave behind

"A compelling firstperson narrative about love and human relationships.
" Booklist, starred review  This is the sequel to "Summer of My German Soldier", which I read a few days ago.
This book was not what I expected at all, The previous book ended with Patty in Reform School and I was eager to know what happened, This book beginsyears later, when Patty graduates from high school in her small town of Jenkinsville, Arkansas.
I also hoped to learn why her parents were so hard on her but loved her younger sister.
I never learned that. Her mother continued to criticize and tear her down while her father still hit her, Her grandparents obviously loved her but even they didn't understand her, No one did when she decided that rather than to go to college that she would complete the dream she had decided onyears before, that she would spend her college savings on a trip to Germany to visit Anton's parents.
Anton was her German soldier, I truly thought that she would find Anton alive, She didn't. She did go to Europe and she found love in Paris but she almost destroyed both her health and that love.
And visiting Germany was not the dream that she thought it would be, Patty had a very difficult time with growing up and accepting herself for herself,

I think these two books could almost be considered classics, Not as good as the first I expected something very different, .