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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
I'm not one for incredibly depressing content and themes in books, but this was so well written and sadly beautiful I couldn't help but love it. Would I recommend it? Probably not to your average reader. Rory's voice and style of storytelling reminded me of Billie Jo from Out of the Dust only more gritty and raw.
Thoroughly mediocre: in a series of frequently evocative and occasionally moving vignettes about growing up poor with a single mother in a trailer park outside Reno, NV, our heroine Rory Dawn's initially engaging voice and fresh perspective wear ever thinner as the mildly clever language becomes increasingly formulaic; promising themes are gestured at only to be feebly engaged and/or precipitously dropped for long periods (the Girl Scout code, pedophilia and young sexuality, and especially the Buck v. Bell case); some half-baked formal ideas (intermittently incorporating Girl Scout guidelines, social-worker case files, and, most tediously, "creative" multiple-choice questions) unsuccessfully mask insufficient plotting and character development, leaving me unmoved by the final steps taken by this "girlchild" I imagined I was beginning to know.
Meh. Nothing great about this book. I just didn't care about the main character.
The style of this book was unique—the story comes across in short, fragmented moments that really put me inside the head of the young girl who is the narrator. Sad and often beautiful, in the end, I was frustrated because, trapped in her head, I never fully understood what was going on any more than she did.
Rory, the main character in this book, is growing up in a white-trash trailer park and wants desperately to find a life better than her mom's and her grandma's. She relies on the often checked out "Girl Scout's Handbook" to teach her what she needs to know about life. This book is a quick read and very well written. However, it's pretty dark - filled with child abuse and the idea that it's pretty hard to ever climb out of some of the lots people get handed in life.
I picked up this book because my eye is always drawn to blue covers in the bookstore (bought it at Kepler's Menlo Park) and when I read the acks, I saw that it was edited by someone who I think is one of the best editors in the business and has incredible taste. The voice really blue me away. There were funny and touching phrases and sentences that were all tinged with the gritty dust of Reno. There were hard moments to read (child abuse) and the short, vignette chapters somehow kept it from being as powerful as it may have been, but I will definitely check out the next book from this writer. She has true talent.
Lyrical and heartbreaking with just enough sharpness, sass, and hope to add grit, Girlchild won me over. Sure, there are some tricks scattered throughout the narrative that I've seen before--blacked out words, quizzes, snippets of documents, letters, etc.--but Hassman makes it all work. None of it seems too pretentious or cold and I think that is mostly due to the strength of the characters. They sing.
I didn’t like the format of this book, with the word problems and beating around the bush. Sad and interesting storyline, but I didn’t connect with the choppy storytelling.
Amazing story, incredible writing. I actually almost didn't finish it because I got a little bummed out. I have to admit I'm tired of reading about poor people and how sexual abuse and alcoholism seem to run rampant in their lives. However, this is a case of where good writing trumps a so-so story :-) Loved it.
I’m interested to see how this one will play out in my final essay. There’s a lot to work with, though. Even if the author infuriated me by saying that people gamble in the lottery bc that is ILLEGAL in Nevada but whatever