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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
So good!! The twist at the end made me want to start at the beginning and read it again.
This book was not what I hoped it would be - and the constant abuse with her mother not doing anything was getting a little hard to take. I finished it, but I never looked forward to picking it up. The ending had a twist I had not anticipated, which made it interesting, but at the same time, kind of felt like it came out of nowhere, and then the book was done. Would have given it 2 stars but bumped it up one for the great cover.
Very well told story that kept me hooked and eager to find out what happens. I suspected the 'twist' from the beginning but the way the narrative was told it left me just enough doubt to question my suspicions and keep it interesting. Heart-breakingly sad, and well worth a read.
Wow. This was a really powerful book. It was painful to read in that I can't believe this is happening kind of way, and one thing I thoguht was, "Well, the evil stepmother of Cinderella fame doesn't seem so evil anymore."
This was a can't put down book for me, I was so intrigued by it.
This was a can't put down book for me, I was so intrigued by it.
This was a "2005 Highlights" recommended book from the Independent Bookseller List (I have liked several from this list including The History of Love, Banishing Verona, Any Bitter Thing, and A Complicated Kindness)...
I would give it 2 1/2 stars. Several things bothered me. It seemed like a slightly cliched version of a "typical" poverty-stricken little girl getting abused by her stepfather while uttering adorable southern phrases. The only problem is that I feel like I've read a dozen books like this with 2 major differences 1) they were better written (ie Book of Ruth, Bastard out of Carolina) 2) the author was actually southern so knew how to cleverly and consistently use southern lingo.
With that said, this one DID have a twist at the end, which saved the book for me.
I would give it 2 1/2 stars. Several things bothered me. It seemed like a slightly cliched version of a "typical" poverty-stricken little girl getting abused by her stepfather while uttering adorable southern phrases. The only problem is that I feel like I've read a dozen books like this with 2 major differences 1) they were better written (ie Book of Ruth, Bastard out of Carolina) 2) the author was actually southern so knew how to cleverly and consistently use southern lingo.
With that said, this one DID have a twist at the end, which saved the book for me.
This was a disturbing read, but the story was so engaging. And the end...I didn't see it coming.
So I picked this book up while I was on vacation for a night's read back at the hotel because it looked bittersweet and well written. It is both those things, but it's also depressing as anything: the ending hit me out of nowhere even though I have some understanding of the psychological damage caused by child abuse, and I felt a bit manipulated by the writer's deliberate presentation of a point of view where all the characters back up the narrator's perspective to create reality where there's only defensive fantasy. Worth reading, but don't expect to come out of it happy.
I had a really hard time liking this book. It moved slow for me. I didn't stay enthralled, like I had hoped. But, I stuck with it. Like the first Saw movie, it was worth it for the last 10 minutes!
I thought this book was really slow. The end really surprised me though!
In once sentence: Well, I wasn't expecting that.
I picked this book up on a whim at a $5 bag sale at my library. It fell into my preferred realistic story telling genre, but in addition to that it was a very powerful - albeit sad - story. I highly recommend to anyone who is into that type of story. And that twist at the end...oof.
I picked this book up on a whim at a $5 bag sale at my library. It fell into my preferred realistic story telling genre, but in addition to that it was a very powerful - albeit sad - story. I highly recommend to anyone who is into that type of story. And that twist at the end...oof.