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A review by piburnjones
Nellie's Promise by Valerie Tripp
3.0
Reading for the first time as an adult, so I have nostalgia-goggles for the characters, but not for this particular book.
The older I get, the less patience I have with stories where all problems would be solved if the characters would just TALK to each other. Especially when they're characters who like each other and live together.
Like, once it gets to the point where everything is tense and there's an emotional barrier to starting the conversation - I get holding back at that point. But if Nellie walks into the house on page 3 and says "Yikes, I just ran into Uncle Mike, is it true what he told me?" then this is an entirely different book. Not necessarily one without conflict. Just different, better informed conflict. Not to mention that because Nellie chooses not to confide in them, Cornelia, Gard and even Samantha feel very flat and cardboard-y throughout the book. Which... BUMMER.
Alas, Nellie is a girl who bottles things up - and frankly, maybe this bothers me so much because I am too and consciously try not to be. So we get a couple pages of happy Nellie, about 60 pages of Nellie fretting, and then a very sudden denouement in which the role of deus ex legal papers is played by Uncle Gard. I can't help thinking that Sam and Nellie's friendship deserved better.
That aside, I like the idea of Nellie working toward becoming a teacher - something practical that will allow her to support herself without depending on the Edwards/Parkington clan, or on finding a husband. (Besides, I'd rather picture Nellie and Sam living together their whole lives. Sam inherits her fortune and splits her time between painting and activism; Nellie insists on holding a job so she can contribute financially to the household - she becomes a teacher or a social worker. Is it weird for them to grow up and fall in love now that they're adopted sisters??) The acknowledgement of class conflict in this book is not deep, but it is there. I was impressed that Nellie talks openly at school about her past at the thread factory, though of course neither she nor the other girls quite know how to handle it when she does.
On the other hand, Nellie's connection to the settlement house made me wish for a bit more of a timeline. The story she tells in Samantha Learns a Lesson suggests that when she was working at the thread factory, she did not have time or energy to spare running around the settlement house learning languages and fixing things. Nellie suddenly becomes superhuman: she can translate, she can fix clocks, she even knows cars! (Yes, her dad was a driver, but wasn't she busy ironing and so forth? Did her work at the Van Sicklyns somehow leave time for school AND extra school with Samantha AND learning auto mechanics from Dad?) As usual, I'm expecting more detail from a 60-ish page book for eight-year-olds than there's room for - but I do think Tripp and her editor needed a few more rounds on this one.
The older I get, the less patience I have with stories where all problems would be solved if the characters would just TALK to each other. Especially when they're characters who like each other and live together.
Like, once it gets to the point where everything is tense and there's an emotional barrier to starting the conversation - I get holding back at that point. But if Nellie walks into the house on page 3 and says "Yikes, I just ran into Uncle Mike, is it true what he told me?" then this is an entirely different book. Not necessarily one without conflict. Just different, better informed conflict. Not to mention that because Nellie chooses not to confide in them, Cornelia, Gard and even Samantha feel very flat and cardboard-y throughout the book. Which... BUMMER.
Alas, Nellie is a girl who bottles things up - and frankly, maybe this bothers me so much because I am too and consciously try not to be. So we get a couple pages of happy Nellie, about 60 pages of Nellie fretting, and then a very sudden denouement in which the role of deus ex legal papers is played by Uncle Gard. I can't help thinking that Sam and Nellie's friendship deserved better.
That aside, I like the idea of Nellie working toward becoming a teacher - something practical that will allow her to support herself without depending on the Edwards/Parkington clan, or on finding a husband. (Besides, I'd rather picture Nellie and Sam living together their whole lives. Sam inherits her fortune and splits her time between painting and activism; Nellie insists on holding a job so she can contribute financially to the household - she becomes a teacher or a social worker. Is it weird for them to grow up and fall in love now that they're adopted sisters??) The acknowledgement of class conflict in this book is not deep, but it is there. I was impressed that Nellie talks openly at school about her past at the thread factory, though of course neither she nor the other girls quite know how to handle it when she does.
On the other hand, Nellie's connection to the settlement house made me wish for a bit more of a timeline. The story she tells in Samantha Learns a Lesson suggests that when she was working at the thread factory, she did not have time or energy to spare running around the settlement house learning languages and fixing things. Nellie suddenly becomes superhuman: she can translate, she can fix clocks, she even knows cars! (Yes, her dad was a driver, but wasn't she busy ironing and so forth? Did her work at the Van Sicklyns somehow leave time for school AND extra school with Samantha AND learning auto mechanics from Dad?) As usual, I'm expecting more detail from a 60-ish page book for eight-year-olds than there's room for - but I do think Tripp and her editor needed a few more rounds on this one.