A review by spavento
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

5.0

An unwavering masterpiece. Essential reading. The pinnacle of realist fiction. The ultimate coming of age story. I wept so many times throughout this book. Couldn’t help it. Not even at the end of a chapter: some startlingly keen insight tucked in the middle of the story would stop me in my tracks. Filled with joy and grief in equal measure like all childhoods and they both made me cry. Not a single bad chapter, not a sentence out of place