A review by spellboundchapters
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“One day,’ I told him, ‘God will turn out all the lights to remind people like you that in the dark, you won’t be able to tell who is white like you and who ain’t. We’ll have to treat one another equally. We’ll learn it’s not our skin color that makes us good or bad. And only when we learn that, will God turn the lights back on.”

I was originally going to rate this book 4 stars, but I finished it about a month ago and haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.
This book is the story of Betty Carpenter, the daughter of a Cherokee man and a white woman, growing up in the 1950s-1960s in rural Ohio. Out of all her siblings, Betty is the one that looks the most like their father.

This book isn't similar to A Little Life at all, it isn't "torture porn" in any way. But similarly to A Little Life, even though I loved it, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone as it's so triggering and really hard to get through. I sobbed so much and had to stop reading several times because everything was really intense.
Here's a list of all the trigger warnings (almost all of them are pretty graphic) : racism, racial slurs, abortion, animal cruelty, animal death, blood, bullying, incest, misogyny, suicide attempt, rape, child death, drug abuse, sexual violence, sexual assault, mental illness.

Overall this book is very dark, but Tiffany McDaniel's writing style is so poetic and magical. There's always this little glimpse of light and hope, of seeing the good things in the middle of all these horrible things. It portrays so well how family can be so beautiful but so dysfunctional at the same time, and how secrets can tear people apart.

The characters are all so well crafted. Some of them you will hate, other you will love with every fibre in your being. For some of them it's a bit more nuanced than that. But each of them is deeply flawed and realistic.
Betty's dad is one of the best characters I've ever read about. The way he stayed so nice and positive throughout his life, even after the worse things happened to him. And the way he transmitted his stories and his love for nature to his children... ugh, he's just too pure. Reading about this kind of father and healthy father-child relationships always makes me so soft.

“Some men know the exact amount of money in their bank accounts,” she continued. “Other men know how many miles are on their car and how many more miles it’ll handle. Other men know the batting average of their favorite baseball player and more other men know the exact sum Uncle Sam has screwed ’em. Your father knows no such figures. The only numbers Landon Carpenter has in his head are the numbers of stars in the sky on the days his children were born. I don’t know about you, but I would say that a man who has skies in his head full of the stars of his children, is a man who deserves his child’s love. Especially from the child with the most stars.”

If you think you can handle it and are ready to have your heart torn into pieces, definitely give this book a go.
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