A review by lvandyk
The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley

3.0

I was disappointed by Smiley's first novel for young readers, perhaps because I think so highly of everything else I've read by her. Two things that bothered me: 1) The story is set in the Sixties, but that is totally arbitrary. The decade could have been anything and it wouldn't have mattered at all. 2) The protagonist, Abby's, parents are very religious, but Smiley lets that plot line whimper away without adding any of the insights about growing up in a conservative, evangelical home that I expected based on her previous work.