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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.
In my quest to finish the Popsugar Reading Challenge, I needed to fulfill the category "A book set in high school." Or something along those lines. I'd planned to read Perks of Being a Wallflower to finish the category, but for some reason none of the libraries in my university's circle would give it to me. One of them had it on hold because, apparently, it's used in a class. At another, the book had been lost and they never replaced it. As for the rest...well, who knows? At any rate, I couldn't get it from the university library, didn't feel like going to get a public library card, and didn't want to buy it, so I started looking for alternatives. In the meantime, I found The Unraveling of Mercy Louis on the popular reading shelf at the library and picked it up because I'd read a good review of it...somewhere. I thought it was over at The Armchair Librarian, but if that was it, now I can't find it. So maybe it was somewhere else. Anyway, as I flipped through my Kindle a day later, I found that I already had the book, because apparently I'd purchased it at some point. I must have really wanted to read it! I returned the library copy so someone else could get it and started reading the Kindle one.
The story is told in a first-person narrative by the titular character, Mercy, and in third-person from the perspective of one of Mercy's classmates, Illa. The setting is Port Sabine, Texas--a small town that is still recovering from an explosion at the local oil refinery three years earlier. The year is 1999, and between the explosion a few years before, a dead baby found in a dumpster, and her prophetic visions, Mercy's grandmother thinks that the Rapture is coming. Mercy, raised by her grandmother, follows closely in her beliefs, and wants to live out the remainder of the days before the end of the world enjoying her final summer vacation, playing at least part of the basketball season of her senior year--the world's supposed to end partway through it--and staying out of trouble so she can go to Heaven. Over the summer, though, things start to fall apart. Mercy and her best friend Annie have a disagreement, and Annie refuses to speak to Mercy. Mercy speaks in tongues and delivers orders to find the baby's killer at church. And then, as she tries to find her basketball groove again in the wake of a terrible game during States in the schoolyear, she runs into Travis and gets herself a boyfriend, something her grandmother has strictly forbidden.
Illa, meanwhile, is an anorexic who wants to shrink herself down to nothing, and to be friends with Mercy above anything else. Illa spends most of her time in the summer taking care of her mother, who was seriously injured in the refinery fire and is now confined to a wheelchair. Illa resents her mother for not trying hard enough and tries to escape through photography and managing the Lady Rays, the varsity basketball team that Mercy and Annie play on. Through her outsider's eyes, Illa sees things and asks questions that Mercy isn't able to, being so wrapped up in her own life. And so Illa is the one who manages to piece some things together and help when Mercy begins to unravel in earnest.
The book goes through the summer and into the school year, when Mercy, Annie, and other girls in the school are suddenly struck by a mysterious illness that leaves them trembling and making strange sounds. No one knows how or why it's happening. Meanwhile, the quest to find who killed the baby continues. It's a mess, a big mysterious mess, and no one is entirely sure of anything.
I loved the language of this book. It was beautifully written, and I think it managed to really encapsulate the feeling of being young and having everything suddenly fall apart, and not understanding why. Illa is a young woman struggling with her bisexuality, which I thought was also a lovely touch; she's bisexual and figuring it out, not knowing if she wants to kiss Lennox or Mercy, but Parssinen doesn't make that the entire focus of her character like so many authors might be tempted to do. Instead, it's just something that adds dimension and focus to her character, something that makes her more real, just like her anorexia. Mercy and Illa are both extraordinarily flawed, but you still can't help but like them and want things to work out for them in some way.
On that note... Do things work out? It's hard to say for Mercy, easier to do so for Illa. This book has an extraordinarily ambiguous ending. There's hope in it, on some fronts, but a complete lack of resolution on others. I appreciate that Parssinen apparently trusts us to figure out what's important, but at the same time, I still want to know more about the not-so important stuff. I guess it's supposed to be a lesson, that in life we don't always get all the answers--but I already knew that. I didn't need to read a book to learn it, and I think that if the author trusts us to know what's important, she should also trust us to know that life is unfair without her having to tell us. It was a beautiful book, but it lacked a bit of cohesion at the end, leaving too many loose threads to even having a pleasantly ambiguous ending.
3 stars out of 5.
In my quest to finish the Popsugar Reading Challenge, I needed to fulfill the category "A book set in high school." Or something along those lines. I'd planned to read Perks of Being a Wallflower to finish the category, but for some reason none of the libraries in my university's circle would give it to me. One of them had it on hold because, apparently, it's used in a class. At another, the book had been lost and they never replaced it. As for the rest...well, who knows? At any rate, I couldn't get it from the university library, didn't feel like going to get a public library card, and didn't want to buy it, so I started looking for alternatives. In the meantime, I found The Unraveling of Mercy Louis on the popular reading shelf at the library and picked it up because I'd read a good review of it...somewhere. I thought it was over at The Armchair Librarian, but if that was it, now I can't find it. So maybe it was somewhere else. Anyway, as I flipped through my Kindle a day later, I found that I already had the book, because apparently I'd purchased it at some point. I must have really wanted to read it! I returned the library copy so someone else could get it and started reading the Kindle one.
The story is told in a first-person narrative by the titular character, Mercy, and in third-person from the perspective of one of Mercy's classmates, Illa. The setting is Port Sabine, Texas--a small town that is still recovering from an explosion at the local oil refinery three years earlier. The year is 1999, and between the explosion a few years before, a dead baby found in a dumpster, and her prophetic visions, Mercy's grandmother thinks that the Rapture is coming. Mercy, raised by her grandmother, follows closely in her beliefs, and wants to live out the remainder of the days before the end of the world enjoying her final summer vacation, playing at least part of the basketball season of her senior year--the world's supposed to end partway through it--and staying out of trouble so she can go to Heaven. Over the summer, though, things start to fall apart. Mercy and her best friend Annie have a disagreement, and Annie refuses to speak to Mercy. Mercy speaks in tongues and delivers orders to find the baby's killer at church. And then, as she tries to find her basketball groove again in the wake of a terrible game during States in the schoolyear, she runs into Travis and gets herself a boyfriend, something her grandmother has strictly forbidden.
Illa, meanwhile, is an anorexic who wants to shrink herself down to nothing, and to be friends with Mercy above anything else. Illa spends most of her time in the summer taking care of her mother, who was seriously injured in the refinery fire and is now confined to a wheelchair. Illa resents her mother for not trying hard enough and tries to escape through photography and managing the Lady Rays, the varsity basketball team that Mercy and Annie play on. Through her outsider's eyes, Illa sees things and asks questions that Mercy isn't able to, being so wrapped up in her own life. And so Illa is the one who manages to piece some things together and help when Mercy begins to unravel in earnest.
The book goes through the summer and into the school year, when Mercy, Annie, and other girls in the school are suddenly struck by a mysterious illness that leaves them trembling and making strange sounds. No one knows how or why it's happening. Meanwhile, the quest to find who killed the baby continues. It's a mess, a big mysterious mess, and no one is entirely sure of anything.
I loved the language of this book. It was beautifully written, and I think it managed to really encapsulate the feeling of being young and having everything suddenly fall apart, and not understanding why. Illa is a young woman struggling with her bisexuality, which I thought was also a lovely touch; she's bisexual and figuring it out, not knowing if she wants to kiss Lennox or Mercy, but Parssinen doesn't make that the entire focus of her character like so many authors might be tempted to do. Instead, it's just something that adds dimension and focus to her character, something that makes her more real, just like her anorexia. Mercy and Illa are both extraordinarily flawed, but you still can't help but like them and want things to work out for them in some way.
On that note... Do things work out? It's hard to say for Mercy, easier to do so for Illa. This book has an extraordinarily ambiguous ending. There's hope in it, on some fronts, but a complete lack of resolution on others. I appreciate that Parssinen apparently trusts us to figure out what's important, but at the same time, I still want to know more about the not-so important stuff. I guess it's supposed to be a lesson, that in life we don't always get all the answers--but I already knew that. I didn't need to read a book to learn it, and I think that if the author trusts us to know what's important, she should also trust us to know that life is unfair without her having to tell us. It was a beautiful book, but it lacked a bit of cohesion at the end, leaving too many loose threads to even having a pleasantly ambiguous ending.
3 stars out of 5.
Engaging young adult fiction with a healthy skepticism towards evangelical Christianity, a little bit of environmental justice overtones, and a possibly bisexual supporting character with an eating disorder. Maybe a little trope-y. A nice break between books about our certain demise.
Parssinen writes beautifully: in particular, the heavy atmosphere and feeling of entrapment in a small Southern refinery town is written so well that it feels claustrophobic at times. I also loved the passages about Mercy's deep love for basketball. That being said, I never quite got into the story or the characters. I didn't care deeply for them, though they were all fairly well constructed - mostly I just felt sick about how women are treated and desire for things to get moving or resolved. So, points for writing, fewer points for plot and enjoyability.
3.5 good and interesting read l. A little strange and felt a little disjointed. Felt very uninvested in the story/characters.
The writing in this novel is just gorgeous, incredibly atmospheric and readable. The commentary on the trials of girlhood and the damage religious fanaticism does to young women by shaming and practically criminalizing their sexual agency was fantastic, balanced and humanized by the wonderfully well-rounded characters. And the connection with Arthur Miller's The Crucible, one of my favorite plays, was a lot of fun for me to follow, picking up on all the little references and borrowed character names. There are a few things I wish had been better resolved at the end, but overall this reading experience was a delight.
Honestly, 3 stars is generous. It was weird and not suspenseful. Very religious but I can't tell if the author feels good or bad about religion but I might lean towards bad. Do not recommend.
See my full review at my blog about literary fiction by women, Read Her Like an Open Book. http://wp.me/p3EtWm-vz
Seventeen-year-old high school senior Mercy Louis is a star in her hometown of Port Sabine, Texas. She is the best basketball player in the school’s history and one of the best in the state. She is popular despite being a quiet and serious young lady with little social life. For, as much as she may be admired, everyone knows her story: her teenager mother, Charmaine Boudreaux, abandoned her and ended up a drug addict in Houston; her father is a ne’er do well named Witness Louis who has had nothing to do with her beyond her creation.
Mercy has been raised by her grandmother, Evelia Boudreaux, a dour, single-minded fundamentalist who has made it her mission to prevent Mercy from repeating the humiliating sins of her mother.
Mercy has been shaped by the dual (and dueling) visions of her grandmother and her ambitious basketball coach, Jodi Martin, who recognizes that Mercy is a once-in-a-lifetime player who can bring the coach, the school, and the town great acclaim while earning herself a Division I scholarship and the chance to escape the hothouse of Port Sabine, a ragged, oil refinery-dominated town on the Gulf Coast.
Mercy has been under their full-court pressure for so long that her unraveling is inevitable; the only questions are when and how. The Unraveling of Mercy Louis answers those questions in a probing and suspenseful story that has been described as a cross between Friday Night Lights and The Crucible.
The story is told through dual narratives: Mercy tells her story in 1st person, while basketball team manager and secret admirer Illa Stark narrates her chapters in a close 3rd person, giving us an inside and outside view of Mercy and her circumstances.
....
The catalyst that sets all these conflicts in motion is the discovery of an aborted fetus in a dumpster behind a local convenience store. The police and citizens are obsessed with determining who “murdered” the baby, and suspicions run rampant. Beau Putnam uses the situation to complain about the police investigation and lack of leadership in Port Sabine. Tensions from the refinery explosion and fears that the town’s major employer is polluting their air and water make Port Sabine’s residents even more fractious.
...
The quality of Parssinen’s writing keeps The Unraveling of Mercy Louis from turning into an overstuffed melodrama. She keeps the two narratives moving and she weaves the various plotlines together adroitly.
Seventeen-year-old high school senior Mercy Louis is a star in her hometown of Port Sabine, Texas. She is the best basketball player in the school’s history and one of the best in the state. She is popular despite being a quiet and serious young lady with little social life. For, as much as she may be admired, everyone knows her story: her teenager mother, Charmaine Boudreaux, abandoned her and ended up a drug addict in Houston; her father is a ne’er do well named Witness Louis who has had nothing to do with her beyond her creation.
Mercy has been raised by her grandmother, Evelia Boudreaux, a dour, single-minded fundamentalist who has made it her mission to prevent Mercy from repeating the humiliating sins of her mother.
Mercy has been shaped by the dual (and dueling) visions of her grandmother and her ambitious basketball coach, Jodi Martin, who recognizes that Mercy is a once-in-a-lifetime player who can bring the coach, the school, and the town great acclaim while earning herself a Division I scholarship and the chance to escape the hothouse of Port Sabine, a ragged, oil refinery-dominated town on the Gulf Coast.
Mercy has been under their full-court pressure for so long that her unraveling is inevitable; the only questions are when and how. The Unraveling of Mercy Louis answers those questions in a probing and suspenseful story that has been described as a cross between Friday Night Lights and The Crucible.
The story is told through dual narratives: Mercy tells her story in 1st person, while basketball team manager and secret admirer Illa Stark narrates her chapters in a close 3rd person, giving us an inside and outside view of Mercy and her circumstances.
....
The catalyst that sets all these conflicts in motion is the discovery of an aborted fetus in a dumpster behind a local convenience store. The police and citizens are obsessed with determining who “murdered” the baby, and suspicions run rampant. Beau Putnam uses the situation to complain about the police investigation and lack of leadership in Port Sabine. Tensions from the refinery explosion and fears that the town’s major employer is polluting their air and water make Port Sabine’s residents even more fractious.
...
The quality of Parssinen’s writing keeps The Unraveling of Mercy Louis from turning into an overstuffed melodrama. She keeps the two narratives moving and she weaves the various plotlines together adroitly.
Note: I received an advanced reading copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.
Parssinen has created an interesting look at religion and youth in a small Texas town which is still haunted by a refinery explosion. Mercy Louis, a local teen, has to balance her stardom on the school basketball team with an innocent ignorance thrust upon her by her grandmother's moral teachings. At the same time, Illa, team manager, has to be the caretaker for her mother, who was badly injured in the refinery explosion. While these two stories weave together, a Crucible-like panic begins afflicting some of their female classmates.
It's a fast read with a creeping uneasiness spun through each page.
Parssinen has created an interesting look at religion and youth in a small Texas town which is still haunted by a refinery explosion. Mercy Louis, a local teen, has to balance her stardom on the school basketball team with an innocent ignorance thrust upon her by her grandmother's moral teachings. At the same time, Illa, team manager, has to be the caretaker for her mother, who was badly injured in the refinery explosion. While these two stories weave together, a Crucible-like panic begins afflicting some of their female classmates.
It's a fast read with a creeping uneasiness spun through each page.
The title made me feel like this was gonna be a Western, but it was very not. Instead there was quite a bit of basketball, a fair amount of creepy Evangelical Christianity, and at least one mention of gators.
SPOILERS
Would be 5 stars, but we never figure out who left the baby in the dumpster and a dog is killed out of bigotry. :c
This book hit way too close to home for me. I probably won't be able to read it again.
Would be 5 stars, but we never figure out who left the baby in the dumpster and a dog is killed out of bigotry. :c
This book hit way too close to home for me. I probably won't be able to read it again.