Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
I really liked the writing style in this book. It's broken down into small diary-like entries chronically Rory's life, although not entirely in order. Interspersed are reports from a social worker and entries that are more philosophical in nature or general observations about life in the Calle.
Rory and her mother move from California to just outside Reno, NV when Rory is 4. Her four older brothers have moved away to find their father, and Rory and her mother go to live in a trailer park, known as the Calle, to be near her grandmother.
Grandma Shirley had Jo when she was a teenager, Jo had her first child at 15, so Rory is the hope of the family. She is smart, and everyone is determined that she shouldn't mess up her life by getting pregnant. It reminded me of Me & Emma and A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, but it was also very unique in the style and voice.
I was attracted to this book because of the inclusion of Girl Scouts in the description. And while there is a thread of references to the Girl Scout Handbook, it's not as big of a plot element as I was expecting. The book definitely centers more about Buck v. Bell in which "feebleminded" women are deemed worthy of infertility by the Supreme Court.
This quick read is a collage of snippets of the tragic and unfortunate way of life of many poor people in America.
http://momsradius.blogspot.com/2015/08/book-review-girlchild.html
Rory and her mother move from California to just outside Reno, NV when Rory is 4. Her four older brothers have moved away to find their father, and Rory and her mother go to live in a trailer park, known as the Calle, to be near her grandmother.
Grandma Shirley had Jo when she was a teenager, Jo had her first child at 15, so Rory is the hope of the family. She is smart, and everyone is determined that she shouldn't mess up her life by getting pregnant. It reminded me of Me & Emma and A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, but it was also very unique in the style and voice.
I was attracted to this book because of the inclusion of Girl Scouts in the description. And while there is a thread of references to the Girl Scout Handbook, it's not as big of a plot element as I was expecting. The book definitely centers more about Buck v. Bell in which "feebleminded" women are deemed worthy of infertility by the Supreme Court.
This quick read is a collage of snippets of the tragic and unfortunate way of life of many poor people in America.
http://momsradius.blogspot.com/2015/08/book-review-girlchild.html
Not for those who are weak-hearted about difficult childhoods. The main character is not looking for pity or anything. This is more more about surviving and the novel ends with a wonderful image.
A very good book. I will read more by this author.
A very good book. I will read more by this author.
”How short the distance is between the haves and the have-nots, the cans and the cannots, how where you’re born is sometimes all that separates a sure thing from a long shot.”
Wow. What an absolute gut-punch.
Girlchild really hits its stride at the halfway point. Until then, I found the quick, vignette-style chapters to be disjointed and I had a hard time keeping up my interest in the story. I got there eventually, but it does suffer a bit from a lack of cohesiveness.
But my GOD can Tupelo Hassman write! There is a lot of variety here: social worker reports, metaphor-laden word problems, entire pages of blacked out text, five sentence chapters, and lots of time in little Rory Dawn’s head. All of it is great, but the sections in prose (the bulk of the novel) are so, so good. At times there was such literary depth that I’d find myself reading paragraphs over and over to try to absorb it all. I’m really resisting the urge to type out a whole section from a middle chapter (titled: hit and run) here, but I know I should just let people find the best parts when they read. But, damn! Really good stuff.
Wow. What an absolute gut-punch.
Girlchild really hits its stride at the halfway point. Until then, I found the quick, vignette-style chapters to be disjointed and I had a hard time keeping up my interest in the story. I got there eventually, but it does suffer a bit from a lack of cohesiveness.
But my GOD can Tupelo Hassman write! There is a lot of variety here: social worker reports, metaphor-laden word problems, entire pages of blacked out text, five sentence chapters, and lots of time in little Rory Dawn’s head. All of it is great, but the sections in prose (the bulk of the novel) are so, so good. At times there was such literary depth that I’d find myself reading paragraphs over and over to try to absorb it all. I’m really resisting the urge to type out a whole section from a middle chapter (titled: hit and run) here, but I know I should just let people find the best parts when they read. But, damn! Really good stuff.
I know that people lead very sad and difficult lives, and that many children suffer horrible abuse, but I guess I don't enjoy reading about it discussed oh so casually. I tried to see the hope in Hassman's story, and I know that there was a measure of it running throughout Rory's life(and I loved that the relationships between the three generations of Hendrix women were ultimately celebrated despite all their flawed ways of loving and trying to protect one another), but ultimately I found that this story was just too heartbreaking for me to say I truly enjoyed. I also struggled with some of the choices the author made in telling the story. While I generally enjoy stories told in alternative or unique narrative styles, I found some of the chapters in this story clunky and felt they gummed up the story a bit instead of helping it flow forward. In the end, something about this story kept me at an arms length emotionally, which is saying something if I don't cry over a life as tragic as Rory's!
7/10
This book is well-written, but it ventures too far into the poetic side too often for my liking. I had trouble connecting with the story for this reason, in addition to the fact that it's structured like a Girl Scouts Handbook, and so isn't presented in a linear progression. All the metaphors and the poetic devices used to tell this story obscure the impact some directness might have given, but maybe that's point. The characters and the stories aren't too clear for me, not in the sense that I'm not able to understand them, but in the sense that they feel . . . a bit distant?
But I mostly enjoyed it. I think the main character, Rory, is a strong spirit. I'm surprised to say that I don't think I've ever read anything hyper-focused on those in poverty, or those who are as awfully neglected as the people in this town are, before.
This novel does a great job of giving us a picture of how the people in the lower rung live, how they operate, how they behave, what their thoughts on the world are. It's so bleak and hopeless; gray is the best word I can use to describe it - so much gray, which is why I was surprised when there was an ounce of hope left at the end. I internally cheered when Rory decides to get out of town, to avoid ending up like her mother and grandmother, who are trapped there.
This book is well-written, but it ventures too far into the poetic side too often for my liking. I had trouble connecting with the story for this reason, in addition to the fact that it's structured like a Girl Scouts Handbook, and so isn't presented in a linear progression. All the metaphors and the poetic devices used to tell this story obscure the impact some directness might have given, but maybe that's point. The characters and the stories aren't too clear for me, not in the sense that I'm not able to understand them, but in the sense that they feel . . . a bit distant?
But I mostly enjoyed it. I think the main character, Rory, is a strong spirit. I'm surprised to say that I don't think I've ever read anything hyper-focused on those in poverty, or those who are as awfully neglected as the people in this town are, before.
This novel does a great job of giving us a picture of how the people in the lower rung live, how they operate, how they behave, what their thoughts on the world are. It's so bleak and hopeless; gray is the best word I can use to describe it - so much gray, which is why I was surprised when there was an ounce of hope left at the end. I internally cheered when Rory decides to get out of town, to avoid ending up like her mother and grandmother, who are trapped there.
It's one of those books I wanted to love more than I did. The format is interesting and the setting is vivid, but I should have gone through it faster with those micro-chapters and I didn't. A story like this should have packed more of an emotional punch, but the truth is that it left me not feeling much at all.
heartbreaking, chilling, and utterly, utterly beautiful.girlchild is simultaneously a novel and an epic poem, detailing the intense, close, and most of all, real thoughts and feelings of a girl who is both broken and invincible.
I don't know that I "really liked it" but it was beautifully written, with an aching tone.
Rory Hendrix lives in Calle (trailer park) with mom Jo bartender, grandma, only friend Viv, babysitter Carol, Hardware Man, four brothers, librarian, Girl Scout Handbook (notes to self to jog memory about this book later on).
social worker's notes, news clippings, diary?
Rory Hendrix lives in Calle (trailer park) with mom Jo bartender, grandma, only friend Viv, babysitter Carol, Hardware Man, four brothers, librarian, Girl Scout Handbook (notes to self to jog memory about this book later on).
social worker's notes, news clippings, diary?
Great writing but I had a really hard time getting through it.