When Annie Jacobson’s brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike’s absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward … toward healing and pray fervently for Mike’s safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts. In the tumult of this time, Annie and her family grapple with the tension of holding both hope and grief in the same hand, even as they learn to turn to the One who binds the wounds of the brokenhearted.
Author Susie Finkbeiner invites you into the Jacobson family’s home and hearts during a time in which the chaos of the outside world touched their small community in ways they never imagined.
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Some books are meant to be read. All Manner of Things is meant to be lived in. The pages enfolded me into a raw and beautiful family journey which touched me on a soul level. This exquisitely rendered portrait of hope, courage, and love in a time of war is a triumph and a gift. Susie Finkbeiner at her finest.
Wow! This story and its characters wove themselves around my heart. I laughed, I held my breath, I cried. This story welcomed me into an intimate, heartfelt journey with these characters. The characters felt so real that I felt like I became part of their family.
My parents were born in 1956. I have seen pictures and listened to the music they grew up listening to. I’ve enjoyed listening to the stories they have shared of memories they have of this time period. Reading this story, was even better than listening to their stories (sorry mom & dad) because I felt like I lived the story with the characters.
Susie Finkbeiner tackles difficult topics and through the characters, we are reminded of the importance of forgiveness as well as given a gentle reminder that even in our darkest moments, God is still with us. I highly recommend this story!
(I receive complimentary books for review from publishers, publicists, and/or authors, including Netgalley. I am not required to write positive reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own.)
One of my top reads of 2019! Touching, realistic slice of family life set in the Vietnam Era. One I’ll be recommending to friends.
Perfectly absorbing. I loved spending time with these characters and wasn’t ready to say good bye. This story was personally poignant to me, as the daughter of a Vietnam vet.
Beautifully written, I had no idea what this novel would be like when I started reading it for my book club. The characters drew me in, despite a slower pace, and I enjoyed savoring my time with them. By the end of the novel I was totally invested in the story with bittersweet tears over it ending.
It’s set in the 60s against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, and I believe the author did an excellent job with history and the whole story.
Readers of Jan Karon will enjoy, I think.
For various reasons, this book hit me in a soft spot. The story is set in 1960s Michigan and centers on a young woman named Annie Jacobson. Annie is contending with a lot of heavy burdens, from her older brother shipping off to Vietnam to her estranged father attempting to find his way back to the family and the death of a beloved family member.
Despite the burdens, Annie senses an unquenchable hope. A sun that doesn’t stop shining, even when clouds elbow it out.
If only we have the eyes to see that sun, and the heart to hold onto the hope for cloudless days. Annie does, and her story is inspiring.
This was a book I needed in these times of uncertainty and heavy hearts.
Annie Jacobson is eighteen, the middle child with an older and a younger brother. The Vietnam War is in full swing, and her older brother, Mike, is about to enlist in the army rather than waiting to get drafted. As predicted, their mother isn’t happy with the idea because their father fought in Korea and was never the same. He abandoned them twelve years ago, when Annie was six, without saying goodbye.
All Manner of Things isn’t a typical novel. There’s no big drama, just a lot of smaller dramas. It’s a story about life, family, and love, set against the backdrop of an idyllic version of 1960s small-town America. It’s almost too idyllic—Annie and her family watch war protests and hippies and race riots on television, but nothing like that comes to their town. Their war hero is welcomed home (although David, who has just moved into town, does experience some racism).
The story is told in first person from Annie’s point of view, interspersed with letters to and from Mike and other characters. The writing style is tight and understated. There are no excess words. And that’s the strength of the story: it’s experienced, not told.
It’s a strong and profound novel that touches on various themes: love, family, healing, reconciliation, loss.
There’s no obvious plot, no noticeable three-act structure, no big stakes, no major conflict, no significant character change. Annie starts the story as a well-raised, hard-working, sensitive teenager, and she finishes the story the same way. She grows, but not in a way that can easily be put into words.
The writing is outstanding, but it’s not one of those books with lots of quotable lines. There are flashes of insight, but they only make sense in the context of the story. Outside the story, they’re just words. Yet it’s compelling. It took me a while to pick up and begin All Manner of Things, but once I got to Chapter Two, I didn’t want to put it down.
I think the story is best summarised by the Julian of Norwich quote at the beginning:
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
(Julian was a fourteenth-century mystic—a woman, despite the name.)
Recommended for those looking for a novel set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, or those looking for understated yet powerful historical fiction.
Thanks to Baker Publishing and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.
Wonderful book! I love all the books by this author but this is the best of them. It had such strong family relationships and I felt like I knew them right away. It dealt with hard issues, abandonment, PTSD and the war in Vietnam. Great book! Can’t wait for her next one!
I graduated from high school and college during the 1960s and could definitely relate to the characters in this fantastic new book by Susie Finkbeiner. I knew people during this time who were just like this family and the main characters – especially Annie – who were all trying to find peace in their small family during a turbulent time in our history.
Annie is 18 years old and living in a small town in Michigan with her mother, her older brother Mike and her younger brother Joel. Their father left the family years before and is not part of their lives. The year is 1967 and the Vietnam War is affecting everyone – whether it’s watching the evening news reports on the war or having a friend or neighbor get drafted and sent to fight. This novel is about how war effects everyone and changes their lives. The only way to survive the unsettled times was through love and care of other people – your family and friends, your church and your community.
For some people this book will be considered historical fiction – events that happened before they were born. For me, it was a picture of life in small town America during this time. The family in this novel are very real and brought back many memories to me of growing up during this time. The author’s historical references about the clothes and the music and the innocence of many of the people is absolutely correct.
I have lots of books in my house. Most of my books get passed on to my friends. My most favorite books – a very small percentage – stay on my KEEP FOREVER shelf, never to be given away or even loaned out. All Manner of Things now has a place on the KEEP FOREVER shelf. I loved this book and this family and won’t soon forget them.
Oh, I loved this book so much! It’s the kind of story where you are compelled to keep reading page after page not wanting to stop for one second. So, I didn’t! I read this book in one day getting to know the Jacobson’s who were a family I could easily imagine spending time with.
In this beautifully crafted story I celebrated the happy times and cried so hard during the bad times because the author made me feel the same emotions her characters felt. Set during the Vietnam War this novel is about family, faith, forgiveness but most of all love. A family who is all too familiar with war and the effects it has on their love ones leaving Annie, Mike, Joel and their mother on their own while the father faces his own demons. The one character I wasn’t sure I would like turned out to be one of my favorites and I can picture him and his diner in my mind.
The letters exchanged between Mike and his family during his deployment are poignant and I looked forward to reading each and every single one of them. I don’t know for sure but I imagine the author became emotional while composing them because they certainly got to me. I am in awe of the gift Ms. Finkbeiner possesses because she pulls me into her characters lives. She makes me feel like I am in their home, their workplace or wherever she chooses to take me which is the reason she is one of my must read authors. If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would.
If anyone is looking for a superbly written novel with unforgettable characters then I highly recommend All Manner of Things. This is one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year and I hope it will be one of yours.
I received a copy from the publisher but was under no obligation to write a review. All opinions are my own.
“Behind the clouds the sun is shining. If only we have eyes to see it.”
This is a beautiful, artfully done book. Not many novels move me to the point of tears, but All Manner of Things did. I finished several days ago, and I’m still thinking about it, still flipping through its pages and re-reading the parts of it that spoke to my heart.
Set during the Vietnam War, this poignant story is about family, forgiveness, and hope in the hard things. Annie’s family is well acquainted with hardship. Her father, beset by trauma from his own wartime experiences, leaves the family, leaving them to forge a new life and a new way of being a family. Despite it all, Mike, Annie, Joel, and their mother forge a new life and a new way of being a family, helped along the way by grandparents and a cantankerous diner owner, Bernie. These characters, this time period, are all so fully realized that reading this story took on a cinematic quality, playing out like the scenes of a movie in my head. I adored every detail; the seemingly mundane beauty of the everyday and the heightened tension perfectly reflect the ebb and flow of real life.
Sometimes fiction mirrors reality in such a way that you can’t help but remember certain events in your own life. You can’t help but think that some things never really change, there always seems to be another war, and always seems to be another loved one going off to war, always someone worried and praying for them. Having my own brother that deployed when I was a teenager, then later a boyfriend (now husband) deployed in college, I found myself engrossed by Annie’s character and her life. The back copy of the book calls this a story about grappling “with the tension of holding both hope and grief in the same hand,” and that is honestly such a perfect description. And isn’t it so true of life? There is never a time that there is of perfect peace or complete happiness. Annie’s story transcends time and specific circumstance. Stories like this speak to the collective experience of what it means to be present in hope and pain – “Don’t duck and cover…there’s still so much good going on in the world around you.”
All Manner of Things is a story that I won’t soon forget. It’s one for a spot on the keeper shelf, one that I will be visiting again. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This review is my honest opinion.
Susie Finkbeiner has created characters so real in All Manner of Things, you may want to write them a letter to find out how they are doing once you’ve turned the last page of the book. Definitely a story and characters you will remember.
Set in the turbulence of the 60s with the war in Vietnam and racial divide at home, author Susie Finkbeiner captured me from page one. Finkbeiner has a unique way of taking a time in history and putting the reader in the middle of it. With the inclusion of letters written between the characters, it was an unusual but enjoyable way of tracing thoughts and feelings. Of having difficult conversations when a distance a part.
Raw and honest, I was literally reading as fast as I could. I didn’t want it to end yet I so badly needed to know the ending. And yes, I sobbed like a baby the last few chapters. And that’s okay because if we don’t emotionally connect with a book like this then we’ve wasted our time. All Manner of Things is an emotional roller coaster with characters who are desperately depending on God but learn that His ways are not always our ways. As Mike reminds us, “Don’t duck and cover.”
If you enjoy historical fiction then you must get a copy of this book.
I received a complimentary copy of this book but was not required to leave a review.
Oh, wow!! This is the first book by Susie Finkbeiner that I’ve read. It definitely won’t be the last! Such a great book!!! I haven’t read many books set in this time period. It had all of the feels, the good, the bad. It brought tears to my eyes, and laughter, too. It took twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and drew me in from the first page. So many nuances, so many struggles, all true to life. All pointing to the fact that no matter what happens, our Father in heaven is with us through it all, and with Him, we can get through anything and everything life here on earth throws at us. We just have to keep our eyes on Him.
The main character is a witty, inspiring and likable young woman who insightfully provides a glimpse into her messy family relationships. I enjoyed the characters, the setting, the history, the interactions of family through letters. However, it was too sad of a book for me at this time.
My first Susie Finkbeiner book … but not my last!
I loved the unique setting and voice. It was touching and profound and I would read it again.
This novel has you dive into the life of a 60’s family, through their joys and heartbreaks. Susie Finkbeiner writes with a compassionate eye for her characters and their tenuous circumstances.
It’s one of those stories where you flip through the pages because you’re worried about the characters and what’s happened to them. It grabs you from the first page and holds your gaze until the last sentence closes.
A wonderful read which takes you back to a complicated time in our history which she portrays with dignity and honor. I was sad to see it end.
A beautiful tale of a family during the Vietnam era. The characters were very relatable, the situations reminiscent of a different time. This book stuck with me; I wasn’t ready to start another book anytime soon. Highly recommended!
All Manner of Things has instantly found its place on my keeper shelf!
Captivating me immediately were the beautiful, well-developed characters. I loved how this story was shared by combining Annie’s point of view with letters written among the family. It was easy to get lost in this book.
This novel is set during one of the most trying times in recent history – the Vietnam War. Yet there was so much hope in this story. It was honest, inspiring and touched me deeply.
This is a book I didn’t know I needed. No question – one of my favorites for 2019!
Five Dazzling Stars! I totally recommend this book!
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell as part of the Revell Reads Blog Tour. A positive review was not required. Opinions expressed are completely my own.