You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Y’all. I have so. many. feelings. about this book. This one is going to stay with me for a long while.
Meet Rory Dawn Hendrix, the wise-beyond-her-years girlchild who’s the undisputed star of this story. RD is smart and brave, lonely and damaged, brash and sassy, vulnerable and terrified, cautiously hopeful, and possessing the sad wisdom of someone who’s seen way more than she should have. She’s everything I want in a character and she’s gonna break your heart.
RD lives with her mom, Jo, in the Calle de los Flores trailer park in Reno. It’s a community of hard workers, even harder drinkers, who share babysitting, cigarettes, and meals until the food stamps come in. She struggles with her mother’s alcoholism and habit of trusting the wrong men, not to mention her grandma’s fever for the slots.
RD has been told that she is “third-generation in a line of apparent imbeciles, feeble-minded bastards surely on the road to whoredom.”
But she is hell bent to prove them wrong. Her secret weapon? The Girl Scouts Handbook, a book she’s checked out from her elementary school library so many times that her name fills all the lines on the card. She’s a troop of one, determined to make good in a world that sees her as a lost cause.
This book is an unflinching look at generational poverty. Through RD’s eyes, we see the single mothers who bear all the responsibility for raising their children, the men who hurt them and their families, and how these folks intersect with the criminal justice and social work systems. Bad things happen, and it can be difficult to read, although there are no graphic details. I found it compelling and worthwhile.
The story is told by RD through a series of small vignettes, supplemented by social work reports, diary entries, arrest records, Supreme Court opinions, letters from her grandmother, and family lore. At times parts of these reports are redacted, leaving big black spaces on the page. The writing is beautiful, with hints of poetic prose that contrast nicely against the starkness of the official documents presented.
Be forewarned, the timeline is nonlinear, shifting back and forth through RD’s short life, and everything comes together in the end. It’s creative and purposeful, but if you find this sort of literary device unappealing, this is definitely not the book for you.
CW: domestic violence, child sexual abuse, addiction
Meet Rory Dawn Hendrix, the wise-beyond-her-years girlchild who’s the undisputed star of this story. RD is smart and brave, lonely and damaged, brash and sassy, vulnerable and terrified, cautiously hopeful, and possessing the sad wisdom of someone who’s seen way more than she should have. She’s everything I want in a character and she’s gonna break your heart.
RD lives with her mom, Jo, in the Calle de los Flores trailer park in Reno. It’s a community of hard workers, even harder drinkers, who share babysitting, cigarettes, and meals until the food stamps come in. She struggles with her mother’s alcoholism and habit of trusting the wrong men, not to mention her grandma’s fever for the slots.
RD has been told that she is “third-generation in a line of apparent imbeciles, feeble-minded bastards surely on the road to whoredom.”
But she is hell bent to prove them wrong. Her secret weapon? The Girl Scouts Handbook, a book she’s checked out from her elementary school library so many times that her name fills all the lines on the card. She’s a troop of one, determined to make good in a world that sees her as a lost cause.
This book is an unflinching look at generational poverty. Through RD’s eyes, we see the single mothers who bear all the responsibility for raising their children, the men who hurt them and their families, and how these folks intersect with the criminal justice and social work systems. Bad things happen, and it can be difficult to read, although there are no graphic details. I found it compelling and worthwhile.
The story is told by RD through a series of small vignettes, supplemented by social work reports, diary entries, arrest records, Supreme Court opinions, letters from her grandmother, and family lore. At times parts of these reports are redacted, leaving big black spaces on the page. The writing is beautiful, with hints of poetic prose that contrast nicely against the starkness of the official documents presented.
Be forewarned, the timeline is nonlinear, shifting back and forth through RD’s short life, and everything comes together in the end. It’s creative and purposeful, but if you find this sort of literary device unappealing, this is definitely not the book for you.
CW: domestic violence, child sexual abuse, addiction