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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
The author definitely captured the whole white trash experience and there were some wonderful phrases and insights. It was too confusing in places and never really went anywhere, but maybe that is the point of the story.
I really love the author's creative style. She can definitely turn a phrase but just when I think maybe it's a little too esoteric, I realize how much she was able to pack into just a few creative words without losing momentum. I had a hard time with some of the content (regarding abuse) but I am grateful that it was suggestive and not overtly laid out. It made me want to follow the main character Rory through the story, though, as it was her first person account. I was pulling for her.
Hassman’s Alex-award-winning novel tells the story of Rory Dawn Hendrix who lives with her mother in a poorest of poor trailer park. Her mother, a bartender, is following in the path of her own mother, and it is assumed that Rory will also. Her mother’s history of finding the wrong men has a devastating effect on Rory’s childhood and has steeled Rory’s determination to live her own life. The cover depicts the card inside the library’s copy of the Girl Scout Handbook which Rory has signed out so many times that she has filled the card. She is a GS Troop of 1 - no badges, no uniforms, but there is the book. I loved this book! The writing blew me away. It is episodic - told in vignettes much like Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street as well as in reports from the social worker, diaries, letters and legal records.. It took me a long time to read this book partly because of the weighty story and partly because I keep going back and rereading passages that were so beautifully written or so powerful that I needed to stop and enjoy it. It is not an easy book to read. The events are often devastating. The language in the book had me rereading passages for the beauty of her words or the cruelty.
This novel is beyond depressing. The format was interesting and it was beautifully written, but be forewarned that this is not a feel-good, over-coming adversity story.
I not only like most of the characters in this story, but I worry about them. The references to the Girl Scout badges and oath just brought to mind my own history. The struggle was palpable and real to me.
Recommended. And our book club selection for May. Can't wait.
Recommended. And our book club selection for May. Can't wait.
It was okay, but I think I had higher hopes. Still, Hassman writes a story from the point of view of a young girl you really root for, especially as small clues open to reveal how truly hard her life is.
Meh. I don't know how a story where the main character grows from a young child into early adulthood can go nowhere. Perhaps it was meant as symbolism as the characters here are stuck in their circumstances. How it was laid out made it difficult to follow as to who's point of view were reading from as it does switch. Overall, while it left an impression because of the poverty and trauma throughout, the subject matter could have been a far more compelling story.
3 1/2 stars. This book deals with really tough issues of poverty and abuse. It is told from the perspective of a young girl growing up in a trailer park. She is trying to find a better life by "earning' badges from an old copy of the Girl Scout Handbook. I really liked the voice of the narrator, and felt that it was real, albeit incredibly depressing. There were moments of her story which just made me ache with hopelessness. At times, the pacing was a little slow, but I felt really emotionally involved in the story.
4 1/2 stars. The wonderful thing about first time novelists is their fearlessness. This book is wonderfully brave: not because of its subject matter (which is dark -- poverty, molestation, etc...) but because of the way in which this subject matter is revealed to the reader. The structure of this novel was just as compelling as the story, and the two together were gently explosive. (I actually think that this book does exactly what A Visit from the Goon Squad tried to do, but better.)
In this novel, we are given the story of Rory Hendrix, self-proclaimed "feeble-minded daughter of a feeble-minded daughter" who grows up in "The Calle," the Calle de las Flores trailer park outside of Reno. Hers is a hard scrabble life, a world ruled by the women in it (her Grandma and mother, a bartender) and made horrifying by the men. (It reminded me at times of Bastard Out of Carolina.) Rory is a charming little girl, and not at all feeble-minded as she suggests. She is obsessed with the Girl Scouts, though hers is a troop of one. She finds solace in the library, where she checks out the Girl Scout Handbook over and over again, finding comfort in its promises. She is bright but not hopeful. Smart but aware of dangers of her own intelligence.
The brilliance of this novel, again, is how the story is told. Rory's first person narrative is interspersed with welfare social worker reports, tests ("show your work") -- one in particular which asks you to use the Pythagorean theorem to solve the puzzle of what happened to her when she was supposedly being taken care of by the Hardware Man (given one side of a triangle being as "tall as a shadow of a man" and the little girl is "half the height of the shadow of the man" to determine "what is happening inside the triangle") floored me. In this way, her story is revealed in slivers (blacked out text, Girl Scout badges -- "Proficiency Badge: Puberty"). While this could easily become gimmicky, Hassman's writing is incredibly lyrical and beautiful, and the structure is not self-conscious or hokey.
I loved this book, and I think Tupelo Hassman's future is very, very bright.
In this novel, we are given the story of Rory Hendrix, self-proclaimed "feeble-minded daughter of a feeble-minded daughter" who grows up in "The Calle," the Calle de las Flores trailer park outside of Reno. Hers is a hard scrabble life, a world ruled by the women in it (her Grandma and mother, a bartender) and made horrifying by the men. (It reminded me at times of Bastard Out of Carolina.) Rory is a charming little girl, and not at all feeble-minded as she suggests. She is obsessed with the Girl Scouts, though hers is a troop of one. She finds solace in the library, where she checks out the Girl Scout Handbook over and over again, finding comfort in its promises. She is bright but not hopeful. Smart but aware of dangers of her own intelligence.
The brilliance of this novel, again, is how the story is told. Rory's first person narrative is interspersed with welfare social worker reports, tests ("show your work") -- one in particular which asks you to use the Pythagorean theorem to solve the puzzle of what happened to her when she was supposedly being taken care of by the Hardware Man (given one side of a triangle being as "tall as a shadow of a man" and the little girl is "half the height of the shadow of the man" to determine "what is happening inside the triangle") floored me. In this way, her story is revealed in slivers (blacked out text, Girl Scout badges -- "Proficiency Badge: Puberty"). While this could easily become gimmicky, Hassman's writing is incredibly lyrical and beautiful, and the structure is not self-conscious or hokey.
I loved this book, and I think Tupelo Hassman's future is very, very bright.