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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
Lots of things happening, so many that I feel this tale lost some of the realism, but there was enough suspense to keep me reading.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
These voices combine with the southern summer to provide a feel of family and personalities all their own.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This ended well, but I did not enjoy this finale to the Gaither sisters' series as much as the other two installments. I didn't get the sense of the current events and the setting as much as I had in the other two books. This surprised me, as I actually felt like the down home setting came across more clearly when it wasn't the actual setting of the book. The integration of the events and the racial tone of the setting felt more forced. I really didn't understand Big Ma's actions, I found the Big Ma/Ma Charles/Miss Trotter relationships confusing, and I didn't like how much responsibility everyone put on Delphine without acknowledging their own wrongdoing when it proved to be too much for her.
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
In the summer of 1969, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern travel from their home in Brooklyn to a small town in Alabama to visit their grandmother, Big Ma, who moved from their house back in with her mother after the girls' father got married. They are thrilled to find their beloved Uncle Darnell there, clean after turning to drugs upon his return from Vietnam. They are not so thrilled to learn that the sheriff in town is part of the Ku Klux Klan. The third in a trilogy covering this tightly-knit but unconventional family. Ages 10+
As good as the first two. The Gaither head to Alabama to spend the summer with Big Ma and Ma Charles, across the creek from their cousin JimmyTrotter and his great grandma. The girls' relationships with each other are the main focus of the novel, as the family begins to change and Delphine is worried that things are falling apart and she is desperate to hold everything together. (She's also reading Things Fall Apart, which she is disappointed in because none of the characters are any good--I like that she said that, as I generally prefer stories with at least once character I really like. In the Gaither/Charles/Trotter/Johnson family, everyone does things they shouldn't, but that's what makes them come alive. There's no one "good" character, but I can honestly say I like them all, as I feel like I understand them. I haven't yet read Things Fall Apart, but I hope that's the case with that book, too, and that Delphine eventually finishes it and figures out that no one is perfect and everyone is just doing the best they can.) Vonetta steps up the theatrics, fueling the feud between her great-grandmother and her half sister. Fern reads Charlotte's Web on the bus ride south and is awakened to where meat comes from. She refuses to eat the Wilburs or chickens or cows, tearing up when she realizes what happens to her family's animals when they stop being useful or meat is on the menu. Vonetta picks on Fern mercilessly for this, while Delphine is extra harsh toward Vonetta in return. What's more, Uncle Darnell is back in the picture since he's living with Big Ma, but Vonetta refuses to forgive him for stealing from them in the last book. All this family feuding, plus the news of a new baby, comes to a head when disaster strikes.
I did not enjoy this book. I found the. I keeping between the sisters tiresome and it left me wanting to find a switch for all of them. Some of the travel near the end of the book was ridiculous. Planes in the sixties did not fly as often and I think it would have been days before the character could have gotten a flight to even Atlanta. I get that the author is trying to build fiction around historic events, but I was so distracted by Vonetta's sharp tongue that I couldn't wait to finish this book just to be done with it.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
From the KKK riding around town on horses to tornadoes devastating the town, Rita Williams-Garcia takes the young Gaither sisters I fell in love with in “One Crazy Summer” on another wild journey to visit their grandmothers in Alabama in 1969. The sisters unravel family secrets between their African-American and Native American heritage while trying to find their place in the family.
While I loved the Black Panthers storyline with their activist mother in the first book, I
enjoyed even more the deep dive into the family history and the rallying around a near-tragedy in this second novel.