Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Two women, Chloe Dale, an artist comfortably ensconced in bucolic suburbia, and Salome Drago, a wily, seductive refugee from a country that no longer exists, confront each other in a Manhattan restaurant, and the battle lines are drawn. Toby Dale, son of the artist and ardent suitor of the refugee, is in no position to choose sides. Outside, the drumbeats for the impending invasion of Iraq drown out all argument, and those who object will soon be reduced to standing in the street.

The story of two families—suspicious, territorial, naïve in their confidence that they are free of the past—Trespass unfolds with commanding force. It is a bracing, tender novel for the 21st century.

This is an interesting book with an interesting plot and characters. I liked Valerie Martin's writing style and her attention to details in creating the characters and their relationships. All these factors could have made it a great book if the author had avoided the abrupt twist in the story towards the last quarter of the book. The story thereafter appeared only fabricated to meet a certain, pre-determined climax. It was very disappointing to read the last 70 or so pages. It felt like a great plot and characters were wasted down the drain. Inspite of this disappointment, I have given a 3.5 star rating to this book b'coz of its first half and the author's writing style. I will definitely look out for more books from her -- hoping that she wouldn't disappoint me again.

Average Rating:

Rating: - 3.5 -- Could have been a great book
This is an interesting book with an interesting plot and characters. I liked Valerie Martin's writing style and her attention to details in creating the characters and their relationships. All these factors could have made it a great book if the author had avoided the abrupt twist in the story towards the last quarter of the book. The story thereafter appeared only fabricated to meet a certain, pre-determined climax. It was very disappointing to read the last 70 or so pages. It felt like a great plot and characters were wasted down the drain. Inspite of this disappointment, I have given a 3.5 star rating to this book b'coz of its first half and the author's writing style. I will definitely look out for more books from her -- hoping that she wouldn't disappoint me again.

Rating: - Brilliant in the early going, disappointing at the end
The principle plot points of this book set the stage for all forms of intrusion and encroachment. A new character in a family's life threatens to change everything, a strange man hunting on private property lays a foundation of menace, and the characters collectively react by trying to protect what belongs to them, what feels like the established order of their lives. The tension and vague sense of danger that pervades the first two-thirds of the book had me turning pages, eager to get to the next development.

The removal of a central character in this novel ruins everything. The tension drains from the story like air from a punctured balloon. Thereafter, the plot drifts, story lines are left to wither, and the entire exercise feels a bit futile. The book is nicely written, but I can't help but think the energy and mood of the first two-thirds could have carried through to some pivotal confrontation and then, perhaps, to a discernible point.

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Rating: - hello? ( spoiler alert )
This is more a reaction to the publisher's description, the blurb on the back of the recording I listened to, and the reviewer above who says only poor Chloe fails to assimilate. "How can a mother's love compete with the horrors of Bosnia and an intuitive understanding on Salome's part that the world gives you nothing if you don't take it for yourself."

Can we talk about accepting the mother's position that this is a competition? Or skipping over the "salting the relationship between girlfriend and SON with distrust and competition" that is the foundation of every word Chloe ever says to or about her son?

Chloe is defined not by maternal love but by suspicion and possessiveness. The arrogant pride and fear of a priviledged, willfully ignorant, classist american woman with huge unquestioned boundary issues are to be
compared sympathetically to the 'grasping ambitions' of a young immigrant? Um, because the girl is sexy and intelligent, or because she was shaped by a history of real rather than imagined danger?

Nothing about Chloe's 'love' for her son includes respecting him, his judgements, his emotions or his vision of personal integrity. She does not trust her son enough to let him experience consequence and grow, and she takes no responsibility for the effect of her own lack of character on the lives of those she says she loves.

The only redeeming thing about Chloe is her grasp of Wuthering Heights. Would that she could have seen her own self-defeating passions as clearly. She is a monster of selfishness, projecting monstrousness onto everyone who challenges her need to be in control and beyond criticism. She is not Heathcliff, but Cathy.

This is an idea-driven novel, and the characters' lack of appeal cited by other reviewers may come from their being primarily clothing draped over a series of moral and historical viewpoints. The author's solution to Chloe's incapacity for change, however, seems like a lazy manuever on the way to a truly pat ending. On the other hand - Hamlet hesitated to dispatch a villian before he had a chance to repent; Ms. Martin does not. Perhaps in addition to being an expedient abandonment of her character, this is an equally heavy-handed last judgement of her as well.

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Rating: - Plot promises but doesn't deliver
This book, about a middle aged couple and their son, starts out with promise but falls apart before it ends. Chloe, the mom, takes an instant dislike to her son's new girlfriend, a Croatian refugee named Salome. Salome is a bit unpleasant, but Chloe's immediate and entrenched antipathy is not totally realistic. As the son Toby's love grows, Chloe becomes more and more frantic to see the relationship end, a feeling that makes her shrewish and turns her husband's comfortable love into something a bit distant. Salome's mother gets a voice in spurts here, detailing her disgrace and survival in war torn Bosnia/Serbia, but it's just not that compelling. Her story feels tacked on and doesn't really add to or build on the central Chloe/Salome conflict. It seems that there are two different books trying to break out of this one. It's hard to care about these characters when their actions are petty and then just boring. And a late third act death doesn't help ANY thing - things derail completely unbelievably afterward.

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Rating: - terrible, should have been a short story
288 pages of rambling, and yet I never cared about any of the characters. I skipped pages. This should have been a short story written in 100 pages. Very disappointing. Can't believe others gave it 5 stars!
Save your money! Thankfully, I got this book at the library and didn't pay for it! Author develops story about the poacher ("trespasser"), then does nothing with it. Kills off the only likeable and sympathetic character rather suddenly, and then her husband/son show barely any grief. Hollow characters, boring, boring, boring!!

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