| The Safety of Secrets |  | Author: Delaune Michel
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 6974758
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0060817356
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780060817350
ASIN: 0060817356
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 I was surprised that this is Chick Lit August 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book looks like literary fiction with the artsy cover and the back-cover description. Don't be fooled, though. This is Chick Lit. Those of you who enjoy Chick Lit will probably like this book (see the positive reviews), but since I'm not a fan of the genre, I didn't enjoy it.
 The malignant effects of secrecy July 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Reviewed by Lisa Heidle for RebeccasReads (7/08)
In "The Safety of Secrets" by Delaune Michel, we meet Fiona, a working actor in Hollywood, who is married and expecting her first child. Although this should be an exciting time, her closest friendship is unraveling and her marriage is strained. She has spent much of her life holding a life-altering incident from her childhood so close that nothing can penetrate, showing the malignant effects of secrets and how they contaminate all that we love and desire most.
She and Patricia, her childhood friend, were drawn together out of a shared understanding of what it's like to be unseen, not considered. Both become actors in order to gain the acceptance they never had as children, a natural progression for two unwanted women who learned to play roles and wear masks at a young age. The experience they shared and chose to lock away has bound them together, more out of necessity than devotion. Due to their troubled early lives, neither Fiona nor Patricia learned how to separate from one another and create boundaries as they moved into adulthood; the interactions between them and others are juvenile at best. When Fiona shares the news with her husband that they are going to have a baby, he asks that she postpone sharing the news until the pregnancy progresses. Having already told Patricia, Fiona has "...a sudden impulse to cross my fingers behind my back." She justifies the telling to herself by saying, "And she's my best friend, for Christ's sake. Telling her is like telling myself."
Michel uses Fiona's progressing pregnancy in parallel to the disintegrating relationship between the two women. As the burden of concealment builds in them both, communication turns into competition and devotion turns into animosity until the pain and resentment is palpable. They skirt around the secret they share, unwilling to delve into the pain from the past. The author also refers to acting approaches to mirror Fiona's interpersonal relationships, reinforcing the belief that all is not what it seems with the struggling character. After a difficult encounter with Patricia, Fiona muses, "I want to slap her. And rewind this to the beginning when she walked in to see if we could do a better take, like happy best friends. Like that acting technique of working from the outside in: do the physical and the emotions will follow. Not that I ever believed in that technique, but maybe it could work this time."
When Patricia divulges their shared history on national television, Fiona is forced to question what occurred so many years before and to explore the difference between secrets and privacy. Delaune Michel's "The Safety of Secrets" shows that safety is only an opaque illusion if it does not reside within the truth.
Loyalty and Friendship Grow Up July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the same vein as Firefly Lane and Beaches, THE SAFETY OF SECRETS is a true to life story of the enduring friendship of two women. It tells how their childhood bond is tested as they mature and their values and loyalties are formed and lives change.
Fiona and Patricia meet in first grade in Louisiana and their family lifestyles are different as Fiona comes from a "normal" family with two parents and a sister, while Patricia is raised by a single mother who has an older son from a previous marriage. Both of the girls' youth is greatly influenced by their mothers with Fiona's mother being abusive, while Patricia's mom neglects her. The girls experience a trauma young in their lives and they agree to keep it a secret for life.
Fiona and Patricia grow up and both pursue acting careers, and they are both successful in their own way. However, Fiona marries and has a baby while having a moderately successful and steady television career compared to Patricia's wild celebrity life filled with all the bells and whistles the paparazzi is crazy for.
The chapters alternate between the past as children and their current lives as adults, and thus the story slowly unfolds little by little until the "secret" that is alluded to finally is revealed. However, the way it happens is what brings us to the climax of the story and forces Fiona and Patricia to face the truth of that secret and the ramifications it has played in their lives for years. Fiona comes to realize how much the secret and her mother intertwined to make her the person she is today. Will Fiona's and Patricia's friendship be able to endure this explosive revelation? How will this affect their current relationships and especially the ones with their mothers?
The Safety of Secrets is relatable and one that will have the reader taking sides and staying glued to the story until the end to find out what the secret is. The reader will want to find out what the secret does to Fiona's and Patricia's adult lives and those they now care about. I found the story to be an interesting, well written, believable tale of two women and their friendship.
 Read it! June 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Can't-put-it-down readable with a secret at its core, this book is a sensitive, canny portrayal of a decades-long friendship. It works as a great beach read because of Michel's funny insights into the Hollywood actors scene, but like an iceberg, it has unexpected solidity under the surface. It's depth snuck up on me. It's an atypical coming-of-age story in that rather than simply covering the familiar territory of the jump from girl-to-woman; it explores the maturity that is required to jump from young-woman-to-mother. The crisis in the main character Fiona's relationship with her childhood friend Patricia, coming at the same time as the birth of Fiona's first child, enables Fiona to step into her true female adulthood--to access the maturity required to be a stable and loving example to her baby. Having witnessed Fiona's journey into unconditional love and forgiveness, we are assured that her child will be protected from at least some of the pain and tragedy that Patricia and Fiona endured. I loved it from the beginning to the sweet and moving last page. Read it!
dangerous faultlines June 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Maybe it's because I'm in the midst of deciding what to do about one of my own old relationships that this book hit me so hard. Like Fiona in the book, I'm struggling with a friendship that has emerged as a two-headed hydra--and that's what Michel gets at so trenchantly: just how difficult it is to maintain a long-standing friendship and to keep that monster the ego from taking over and sucking every bit of air out of the garden. Oh, and the mother is quite a piece of work, too.
Michel is a pull-no-punches kind of writer with a terrific way with a metaphor. SAFETY OF SECRETS reads like a thriller, the pacing is so taut, and in fact there is a very real crime committed within its pages. In Michel's hands this scene is both subtle and crushing. A lessor writer would have yielded to its prurient potential; Michel instead reveals her power to pull us deep into the character's feelings. A compelling read.
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