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    The Used World by Haven Kimmel

The Used World: Book summary and reviews of The Used World by Haven Kimmel

The Used World

The Used World
A Novel
by Haven Kimmel
Published in USA Sep 2007,
320 pages.

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The Used World Summary

Hazel Hunnicutt's Used World Emporium is a sprawling antique store that is "the station at the end of the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there." Hazel, the proprietor, is in her sixties, and it's a toss-up as to whether she's more attached to her mother or her cats. She's also increasingly attached to her two employees: Claudia Modjeski -- freakishly tall, forty-odd years old -- who might finally be undone by the extreme loneliness that's dogged her all of her life; and Rebekah Shook, pushing thirty, still living in her fervently religious father's home, and carrying the child of the man who recently broke her heart.

The three women struggle -- separately and together, through relationships, religion, and work -- to find their place in this world. And it turns out that they are bound to each other not only by the past but also by the future, as not one but two babies enter their lives, turning their formerly used world brand-new again.

The Used World Reviews

"It's an intriguing puzzle box of a novel with a few edges left unsanded. " - PW.

"No one can evoke a universe with a safety pin holding up its hem in the way Haven Kimmel can. In her third novel, The Used World, she tells a story of an eccentric collective of women with the majesty of a parable and the poignancy of a country song. As Faulkner did before her, Kimmel writes about doing what needs doing." - Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean.

The information about The Used World shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.

The Used World Reader Reviews

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Haven Kimmel Author Biography

Haven Kimmel was born in New Castle, Indiana, and was raised in Mooreland, Indiana, the focus of her bestselling memoir, A Girl Named Zippy. She is the other of four other novels, a second memoir and two children’s books.

Kimmel earned her undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Ball Sate University and attended North Carolina State University as well as the seminary at the Earlham School of Religion. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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