A review by mindsplinters
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was rather a tough read and possibly even tougher to review.  First off, it really, really should have had trigger warnings at the start of it.  Not putting TW in is like not saying the dog dies in Old Yeller - kind of reckless and mean.  Anyway, to say Sally Diamond is a socially awkward human being is like saying the sea is wet; it doesn't even begin to capture the unusual woman, the way her mind works, the way she acts, and the way she exists.  More to the point, it ignores the why of her.  Rescued with her mother (who had been kidnapped at a young age, raped, and held hostage for years), Sally had some serious development issues built in and, I'm sorry to say, her adoptive father Tom didn't help as much as he thought he did.  Mostly because, while his deceased wife treated Sally as both a case study AND a human being entrusted to her care and love, he primarily saw her as a case study and let the girl do what she wanted, never pushing her out of her comfort zone for most of her life.  So Sally is really out of her depth when he dies and takes him literally when he joked about "just putting him out with the garbage" when he went.  

The book spends a lot of time covering Sally's growth and challenges and you come to root for her as she tries so hard to be both true to herself and still become better adjusted.  That is the main timeline and POV.  Then there is the flashback timeline with a kid/teen/adult named Steven that is considerably less hopeful and enriching.  Mostly because his dad is a bloody pedophile who, while he doesn't touch Steven, definitely warps the kid's growth and mental state.  Lots of fun, right?  Those are ROUGH chapters.  Nugent does mitigate the horror somewhat by being pretty clinical and dry in her writing of those sections.  

The end, though, is what really got me.  It was just... Look, we all know that Sally isn't going to ever be how she would have been without that childhood.  But we have hope for her.  Hope is such a precious thing and so easily crushed.  I don't easily forgive further crushing of already hurt butterflies.

So it wasn't a bad book but it wasn't a great book, in my opinion.  It was well paced, solid character work, detailed plotting... But it was a hard book to read and made harder by the details and layers of pain and abuse and smothering of hope.
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