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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
Real, beautiful in an unexpected way, and full of exceptional writing.
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
A foster kid who is convinced her real mom is waiting for her. A foster family that helps heal her heart. The book that made me cry the most out of any book I've read
One things for sure. Katherine Paterson's book have the consistant ability to make you cry.
This is one of my absolute favourite books. I remember reading it over and over again, though it took me forever to get into because of the cover!
This is one of those books I highly recommend because it's so touching and bittersweet. It's not an easy story - Gilly is angry at the world, bitter and lonely, and she lashes out more than once. She's not an easy character to like, love or empathise with, even though she's been through so much - she's cruel and pushes everyone away as hard as she can, even when it's obvious that they're trying to help her. She takes advantage of people who can't defend themselves against her.
The reason The Great Gilly Hopkins is a great book is because it's the story of how all of that changes. The last thing that Gilly expects it to make friends or like ANY of the people around her when she's taken into a new foster home, and her behaviour and lashing out make that clear.
With every page Paterson unfolds the progression of Gilly's feelings, and the development is beautiful. We can see the armour falling away, and the learning experiences Gilly goes through - her biases and bigotry are slowly chipped away by the sheer patience of those around her. To be honest, if I didn't know some people like the ones in this book, I'd wonder at how bloody patient they are!
In the end The Great Gilly Hopkins is a coming of age story, relating the journey of one scared, angry girl and the way her life is touched and transformed by the last people she would expect to affect her in any way. It's a lesson on the difficulty of life and how what we want isn't necessarily what we need - and that sometimes, once we get what we want we find out it wasn't what we were hoping.
It's a book close to my heart. It's not easy, it's not simple, but it's exactly the sort of book we all need to read sometimes.
This is one of those books I highly recommend because it's so touching and bittersweet. It's not an easy story - Gilly is angry at the world, bitter and lonely, and she lashes out more than once. She's not an easy character to like, love or empathise with, even though she's been through so much - she's cruel and pushes everyone away as hard as she can, even when it's obvious that they're trying to help her. She takes advantage of people who can't defend themselves against her.
The reason The Great Gilly Hopkins is a great book is because it's the story of how all of that changes. The last thing that Gilly expects it to make friends or like ANY of the people around her when she's taken into a new foster home, and her behaviour and lashing out make that clear.
With every page Paterson unfolds the progression of Gilly's feelings, and the development is beautiful. We can see the armour falling away, and the learning experiences Gilly goes through - her biases and bigotry are slowly chipped away by the sheer patience of those around her. To be honest, if I didn't know some people like the ones in this book, I'd wonder at how bloody patient they are!
In the end The Great Gilly Hopkins is a coming of age story, relating the journey of one scared, angry girl and the way her life is touched and transformed by the last people she would expect to affect her in any way. It's a lesson on the difficulty of life and how what we want isn't necessarily what we need - and that sometimes, once we get what we want we find out it wasn't what we were hoping.
It's a book close to my heart. It's not easy, it's not simple, but it's exactly the sort of book we all need to read sometimes.
Love is salvation. A choice. A faith. It is strength. This book shows that beautifully.
I liked how realistic this book was and I actually appreciated the way it ended. No fluffed up happy ending, but a truly believable story.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A short, smart children's book with an unexpected ending, The Great Gilly Hopkins is a well-focused look at the life of a young, trouble-making child in her new adoptive home. Gilly's portrayed quite sympathetically through her past experiences with other, unsuccessful families and this helps the reader root for her in her attempts to get away from Trotter. Her precocious personality shines through, even with the third-person narrative, and by the end, we really get to see her transformation. Trotter and the rest also get nice characterizations and are a believable, colorful cast. I feel like it should have been a little longer in showing Gilly's gradual change, but this is still a good book for kids that I think some adults would be surprised by.