Act of Will by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Act of Will Reviews

• 
  Eri

  Pretty cheesy dialogue surrounding the romances and the plot seemed really rushed at the end. While the point is to understand the previous generations of women and how they impacted the first generation, it seemed to be missing something later on in the novel.
• 
  Katherine 黄爱芬

  Saya baru peerama kali membaca novel author ini. Sebenarnya his-fic spt yg diceritakan author lumayan menarik, dari kurun waktu pasca Perang Dunia I hingga berakhirnya Perang Dunia II. Andai saja relationship para tokohnya ada jatuh bangunnya dan tidak berbau selingkuh, mungkin saya bisa memberikan bintang diatas rata².
  
  Jadi kisah dimulai dari Audra saat ibunya meninggal dan dirinya masih remaja. Dan kemudian Audra dan abang²nya dipisahkan dgn kejam oleh bibi mereka yg ternyata memiliki dendam pd ibunya. Audra kemudian menikah dgn Vincent, seorang pria tampan ambisius. Rumah tangga mrk diwarnai kebahagiaan sekaligus percekcokan krn perbedaan visi mrk ttg siapa yg mencari uang, juga prioritas Audra yg berlebihan utk masa depan anak semata wayangnya, Christina.
  
  Babak berikutnya menceritakan kehidupan Christina remaja hingga berumahtangga, stl sblmnya menjalin hubungan percintaan yg gak seimbang dgn politikus ambisius yg sdh beristri. Dan karier yg dibangun Christina terlalu mudah dan too good to be come true.
  
  Konflik ada tapi sptnya gampang sekali penyelesaiannya semuanya. Saya juga gak mudeng kenapa hrs memasukkan perselingkuhan spt yg dilakukan Vincent tapi herannya gak mengganggu rumah tangga mereka. Lalu hubungan Christina dgn Miles yg sdh beristri, sangat mengganggu dan toxic bagi saya, krn jelas kelihatan sekali keegoisan si Miles ini. Endingnya jg begitu saja, menggampangkan sih mnrt saya. Yaudahlah, lumayan sajalah novel ini.
• 
  Maryann

  It's been a while since I've read a well-written novel after ploughing into the young adult world of today's authors. As soon as I saw the name Barbara Bradford, I knew I had to have this because it had been a while since I read any of her work.
  Act of Will tells the story of three generations of women, beginning from Audra who lost her parents at a young age. Audra wasn't necessarily poor but she lived a comfortable life with her two brothers until her mother passed and she was forced to live with her evil aunt.
  Her brothers move to Australia and she takes up a job as a student nurse at an infirmiry. This is where she meets her best friend, Gwen and her life improves somewhat when she is hired by Mrs.Bell as a nanny. The Bell family were filthy rich but they were kind-hearted and took to Audra immediately.
  During a function with the Bells, Audra meets Vincent and promptly falls in love with him, marrying him after 5 months of dating.
  Three women who succeed their mothers dream until it becomes an empire. They challenge their role in society as dedicated working women while holding their own as wives and mothers.
  Art was Audra's greatest talent but she chose nursing much to the chargrin of her husband, to pay for her daughter, Christina's tuition for art. Christina however makes her own path and becomes a succesful business woman using her creative talents, to make her parents proud. Third in generation is Kyle, as strong-willed as her mother and grand-mother, she's determined to make her own future.
  The novel has strong similarities with
  Love-Makers by [Author: Judith Gould] which is another one of my favourites.
  What a great read! I'd recommend it to anyone tired of today's badly-written hogwash.
• 
  Bamboozlepig

  It's a typical Barbara Taylor Bradford book. You have your plucky heroine who faces all sorts of obstacles with grit and sunny determination. There's the obligatory bad boy that our heroine falls in love with. There's the obligatory next generation that does better in life than the previous generation.
  
  I just felt like all the characters were too perfect. They excelled at everything and were fairly one-dimensional Sues/Stus. Even the one flaw that Vincent had was glossed over. The result was a pretty flat read, despite the tragedies and turmoil that the characters faced in the book. No one, not even Audra's aunt, was truly evil enough to make me want to hate them. And because they were ultra-perfect, I got bored with them pretty fast.
  
• 
  Carmen

  One of Barbara Taylor Bradford's quietly celebrated heart-warming tales Act of Will concerns the young orphan Audra. Forced into work by her greedy aunt and uncle, Audra discovers a talent for nursing with her friend Gwen who is bold and brassy, the polar opposite to the shy and well spoken Audra the two friends both find love, Audra with the destitute Vincent Crowther and Gwen with Mike Leslie, whom she quickly drops in favour of the wealthy doctor Geoffrey Freemantle.
• 
  Sue

  The story opens with a mother and daughter at loggerheads, and grandma called in to mediate. Most of the novel is a flashback. It's fast-moving and very readable, but difficult situations seem to get resolved rather too quickly, and the conclusion - returning to the time-frame of the prologue - is rather obvious.
• 
  Shunammite

  its ok-its just not very realistic whn it comes to love matters,makes it seem easy to love and be loved.
• 
  Angela Macdonald

  enjoyable book, nice story, good characters
• 
  Sanna

  This started as something that sounded very interesting. And turned out to be nothing that I expected.
  There aren't many, if any, likeable characters. The main ladies are all perfect, in everything. They reminded me of Sim-characters that I sometimes create. Stunning looks (well, all the main ladies are described as perfect beauties, and Vincent of course is perfectly handsome man who every woman falls for.) Also, they are excellent at EVERYTHING they do, no matter if its arts, cooking, spending money, just existing. And of course, everybody loves all the main characters. Except that one aunt who we are supposed to hate. I got very annoyed very soon because of the perfectness of each character. You cannot sympathise a character if they are too freaking perfect. There has to be some flaws. These characers have none. It is ridicilous.
  Kinda reminds me that the author has watched too much of the Bold and the Beautiful and this is her own version of it.
  
  And the ending. It comes out of nowhere and there is no result to anything. It just... happens. We are supposed to be reading the lives of 3 generation of women, and we only get unrealistic lifestory of one, ridicilous "perfect woman, perfect life" almost shortstory of the other, and then few pages of the third.
  
  This book was not good and it goes back to where it came from. The "take free!"-section to the library.
• 
  Charlotte

  This book was really dumb. Nothing of significance really happens in the book. It’s just a telling of the lives of the women of the three generations, Audra, Christina and Kyle. Audra lives through the Great Depression and WW2, no one dies other than her son. I guess her situation where she feels forced into her marriage, mirrors how she forced her daughter Christina into painting. Like she wanted to give her the chances she never had, but also wasn’t giving her daughter autonomy or allowing her to follow her dreams. So just like Audra when she tried to leave her husband, Christina takes her destiny into her own hands, and becomes really successful in her idk what she did like a million things, selling her name as a luxury brand I guess. Then Just like Audra did to Christina, Christina tried to do with her daughter Kyle, forcing her to take over the business. But the just like Christina did, Kyle declared her own independence. And Audra helped Christina accept it. And they all lived happily ever after. So exciting, not.
• 
  Anja Rosic

  The book is terrible. Aside from the fact that the romance genre is clearly (and has never been) my cup of tea, it's just horrible. The book is overwritten, the writing itself is terrible and the little potential it had to be readable was completely blown to shreds by sentences such as "she saw him and knew he was the one", "He knew she wasn't the girl to be messed with, she was the real deal" and then chapters of ridiculous sex and how they "fitted perfectly". To tell you the truth, I couldn't even bring myself to finish this horror, and while I'm sure that this type of writing works for some people, it just wasn't and couldn't be for me.
  BUT, in case you want to learn how NOT to write a book, then I recommend it wholeheartedly.
• 
  Evelyn M. Cheney

  I was disappointed
  
  I certainly didn't remember any inappropriate content in her books that I read years ago, so I was very disappointed to have it in this book. I had to skip pages because i don't intend to read that kind of garbage. It is never necessary to tell a good story. Hopefully the author does not repeat that inappropriate stuff in other books or I sure will be disappointed that I bought so many of her books. I certainly will not buy any more if she has lowered her standards.
• 
  Jane Watson

  Haven't read any BTB in ages and have completely forgotten how good she is. Really liked this book and empathised with the characters in it. Love all the description of the clothes and houses - BTB is very good at that and I like being able to imagine what the characters are wearing or how the houses look. It was a bit cheesy at some points but not too distracting. Must read some more!
• 
  Hafsah

  An enticing tale with human nature portrayed brilliantly where bonds of not only romantic love but parental and even friendship where each had its own gala. The attention to detail in every point was presented simply making the reader curious about the smallest detail. A beautiful story.
• 
  Raquel Iacob

  I love Barbara’s novels. This one was great. I related to the mother-daughter relationship. My only critiques are that the intimate parts were a bit much. And the ending was too abrupt. Multi-generational books are my favorite, and this did not disappoint in that genre!
• 
  Samantha Neal

  This book was really good.
  Reason for four star is the printing. it was very hard to see the writing.
  There were 6 different writing fonts
  Will read book again and make sure it is clear to see it.
• 
  Elena Micheli

  ni...perché questi libri incuisi avvicendano le vite di 3 generazioni e su 300 pagine in 250 si parla di solo una delle 3 e in 50 di un po' delle altre 2 e in 3 pagine un epilogo forzato ? in soldoni non si approfondisce niente e nessun personaggio
• 
  Daisy

  Such an uplifting storyline
• 
  Charice Lind mehring

  A good story that spans three generations of women. Each one as stubborn as the other. They each find their path in life and go after it in their own way.
• 
  Lalsa Verma

  
  At places it felt a little drab and often what has been described as 'Act of Will' seemed unreasonable and tiresome.
• 
  Mae

  Good book while traveling - certainly does not demand anything of the reader.
• 
  Marine

  Dans a même veine que L'Espace d'une vie du même auteur, à lire à la suite car il permet quelques clins d'œil à l'histoire précédente. Se lit plus facilement que le précédent, belle lecture d'été.
• 
  Kiah Madden

  A nice story and a relaxing easy read