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A Marble Heart by Travis Gulbrandson
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A Marble Heart (edition 2016)

by Travis Gulbrandson (Author)

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324,093,212 (2.5)2
Member:TravisGulbrandson
Title:A Marble Heart
Authors:Travis Gulbrandson (Author)
Info:(2016), 408 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:Historical fiction, Kansas City, Fraud, True story, Duluth, Politics, Religion, Charity

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A Marble Heart by Travis Gulbrandson

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This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaways.
This book is horribly depressing. It is a long story of child abuse. Mrs. Baker runs children's homes for the sake of being able to collect money. However, while she lives comfortably, the children are starved and dirty. When one home is closed down she moves and starts another.

I am not sure what the point of the book is supposed to be. There is no insight into her character. She is never held to account for her actions. Every now and then there is a short passage that makes you think this is going somewhere finally. But then it doesn't. At the very least, it would help to have a little more idea of how much of this is based on historical facts.

Before being properly published this would need a lot of editing. Proper chapter divisions would help a lot. I got this book as a review copy, and assume that both the text and the e-book realization are not in their final form. ( )
  MarthaJeanne | Feb 9, 2017 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaways.
Reading the book off the kindle app on my phone made it feel like a long read but it was a decent one. There was enough details to keep you interested, though not sufficient enough to put it to the imagination. Not much time was spent on character descriptions for they were vague, if any, even Mrs. Baker's, the main protagonist. Both her sisters looked like a better or worse version of Mrs. Baker, no difference other than age. The book needs some revision I was confused a bit of the time; conversations between characters were hard to track, what read like narratives were actually player perspectives and transitions between days, years, and conversations were sudden and abrupt. Three stars because phone added to the confusion, making my overall reading experience unbearable. ( )
  rebel_duck | Feb 6, 2017 |
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Book description
Forgotten today, Julia Anna Baker was notorious in the early part of the twentieth century for running a series of children’s homes. Mrs. Baker traveled the country proselytizing for and collecting money in the name of “home conserving.” The children who came under her care, however, were subject to filthy living conditions, insufficient food and, in some cases, physical abuse.

A Marble Heart brings the story of Mrs. Baker and her children to life. The novel is the culmination of approximately two years of research, and utilizes such real-world figures as Mrs. Baker herself, Kansas City politicians and a preacher who claimed to be the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah.

It is a story of greed, fraud, abuse, religion and ultimately, survival.
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Travis Gulbrandson is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.

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