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Title: Sunset (Sunrise Series-Baxter 3, Book 4)
ISBN: 1597379905
Author:
Karen Kingsbury
Publicate Date: 2008-09-23
Publish: 2008-09-23
List Price: $39.25
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Audio CD
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $24.15
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $24.76
Amazon Merchant Price: $25.91
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Disappointing ending to an otherwise outstanding series
Sunset is the fourth book in the Sunrise Series and the last of 14 books about the Baxter family. I immensely enjoyed the first 13 books and had looked forward to this final book with much anticipation and even a little sadness. After finishing it, however, I only felt disappointment.
Knowing that this was to be the "end" of the Baxter story, Kingsbury tries to wrap up ALL of the loose ends from the previous books...many of which did not need wrapping up. Happy endings are enjoyable, but when every single ending is picture perfect, the story loses a lot of the realism that makes the rest of the series so easy to relate to. There was less depth in this book, and too many easy answers.
Finally, the thing that bothered me most in this book was the way that Angela Manning (from the very first Baxter book, Redemption) is reintroduced. How would she not have recognized Kari?!? They spoke face-to-face in Redemption! And under the circumstances, neither would ever forget the other. The fact that the author forgot -- as well as her editors and the many other people who read her books before they go to print -- is hard to comprehend. That entire storyline felt forced and untrue.
The series is an excellent one, and Kingsbury is one of my favorite authors, but Sunset left much to be desired.
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2: Sunset
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful as always when Karen Kingsbury writes a book. I love the inspriational writings and I have enjoyed reading about the Baxter's. I always buy her books and many are waiting to borrow when I am through reading. Again this is, as always, very good reading.
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3: And They All Live Happily Ever After
The Baxter family saga concludes with this fourth book of the Sunrise Series although the author promises to use them as background characters in future novels. This is a stand-alone novel, but if the reader has kept up through the Redemption Series and then the Firstborn Series, this book brings back all of the characters and ties up all loose ends in a satisfying conclusion. There's a good bit of repeating, but perhaps this comes with the fourteenth book in a series.
Kingsbury has a way of telling a good story while allowing her readers to know the people who live in her books. Though varied personalities, they all are believable. Children's voices are especially well written such that I can see his head nod as he explains about dinosaurs or hear her plaintive wail when she wants her pacifier.
Warning: read it with tissues close at hand. Any Kingsbury fan will love this one. Discussion questions are included.
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4: A Fitting Goodbye to the Baxters
Like many, I have followed the Baxter family from their beginnings in Karen Kingsbury's Redemption series. I fell in love with them and with Karen's writing style. Sunset is the last of her books with the Baxters as the central characters and it did not disappoint. True to her style Karen Kingsbury made me laugh and cry and cheer before I closed the cover.
One of the things I love about her style of writing is that she has brought to life characters who reflect real life. She uses everyday situations, many that we all face or know people who have faced them, and she shows us how we can live and love and sometimes suffer with grace because of God in us, showing us how to live. She doesn't back away from the important truth that to live in victory we need the Lord in our lives.
In Sunset she brings resolution to volumes of storylines that I felt I lived through with good friends. It wasn't totally predictable, but then again, the parts that are somewhat predictable I feel are in a good way, because they show us what is right, what should happen in a family like this. It gives me hope for my own family and a sense that at least in one corner of a fictional world there are answers and there is hope that a family can live through difficult, trying situations and come out loving one another and doing what is right. There is also hope for individuals who have 'messed up' and have to face their failings and learn to rise above them. I recommend this book, but please don't start here. Meet the Baxters from the beginning, but don't miss this wonderful ending.
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5: Sunset
Karen Kingsbury again does a wonderful job bringing us into the lives of the Baxter family. If you have read the whole series, you might feel like you know the characters in the book better than you know your own family. Knowing that this is the last book in the series is a little sad since we don't know what will happen to them exept though the Baxter's being mentioned in the background of her next series. I was thrilled with the ending, it seemed fitting for all that the family had been through. It seems as the the S series wrapped up we were more focused on the lives of Ashley and Dayne, where as I would have liked to have gotten to know Erin and Brooke's families a little more. Overall, any Kingsbury book is a winner with me, she strengthens my faith even more in a higher power!
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