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floralfox 's review for:
Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison
Oh my god. I was reading along and knew I'd finish tonight and then I thought maybe I'd wait until morning to write a review.
I cannot wait until morning to write a review because the rage inside me is too fresh right now.
I can't believe that ending. And then again, I can't believe I thought it'd end any other way. I knew what I was waiting for, I knew what that final encounter with Daddy Glen was going to be.
But like Bone kept coming back to that scene, I did too: Glen on his knees, bloodied, and the comfort that Anney gave him instead of her daughter in that moment. Of course she would choose Glen. But coming to say goodbye to Bone like that, without even saying it?
In some way, I like Anney. She was pathetic, wounded, sad: a Boatwright. I understood that she loved an unlovable man, that she needed him for some reason, that she didn't know how to leave. But after seeing that him half naked on top of her bloodied, broken 12-year-old daughter? You have to hate yourself to stay with someone after that.
I could cry my heart out for Bone, who never knew love. Not really. Raylene was the closest one to showing her any shade of the truth of love. Everyone kept saying her mother loved her, and she abandoned her at a time that will never let Bone heal. Glen and Anney kept insisting that Glen loved Bone, and then he beat her, molested her, gave her a dreadful image of herself. And then there was Alma's version of love, also destructive, also with a way that made her want to kill something. And Earle's fleeting love, and a sister she couldn't keep close, and cousins just out of reach, and the only friend she ever had bursting into flames from her hatred.
I'm so desperate for Anney and I hate her so much.
I have to wonder if she took Reese.
I have to wonder if Glen's hatred will transfer to Reese. Or if it will turn on Anney. Or how you could ever be intimate after something like that. Or how the silence would eat you alive of not ever talking about your daughter. Bone didn't have to forgive Anney, or talk to her, or anything, when she came on that porch. But she did. She cried to her mother, gripped her by her dress, pulled her close. And then her mother left.
It almost makes you hate Anney more than Glen.
This story was gripping. Terrible. Destructive. Heartbreaking. It was all of those things.
But there were things that took me out of it.
I could never really keep track of how old Bone was. The entire portion of the book that featured Shannon Pearl left Daddy Glen out of it. I had no idea if she was still being beaten. Sometimes I couldn't keep track of how the bodies were aligned during the molestation scenes, and so, as terrible as it was, it was hard to envision what was really happening to her. Sometimes it was also hard to keep track of aunts and uncles and cousins. Or like, at the beginning some characters we got to know well, like Granny, and then she essentially disappeared.
I feel sick to my stomach after reading that. And I think that's what was supposed to be accomplished by Allison telling that story. So. Five stars. Even though I could never put myself through reading it ever again.
I cannot wait until morning to write a review because the rage inside me is too fresh right now.
I can't believe that ending. And then again, I can't believe I thought it'd end any other way. I knew what I was waiting for, I knew what that final encounter with Daddy Glen was going to be.
But like Bone kept coming back to that scene, I did too: Glen on his knees, bloodied, and the comfort that Anney gave him instead of her daughter in that moment. Of course she would choose Glen. But coming to say goodbye to Bone like that, without even saying it?
In some way, I like Anney. She was pathetic, wounded, sad: a Boatwright. I understood that she loved an unlovable man, that she needed him for some reason, that she didn't know how to leave. But after seeing that him half naked on top of her bloodied, broken 12-year-old daughter? You have to hate yourself to stay with someone after that.
I could cry my heart out for Bone, who never knew love. Not really. Raylene was the closest one to showing her any shade of the truth of love. Everyone kept saying her mother loved her, and she abandoned her at a time that will never let Bone heal. Glen and Anney kept insisting that Glen loved Bone, and then he beat her, molested her, gave her a dreadful image of herself. And then there was Alma's version of love, also destructive, also with a way that made her want to kill something. And Earle's fleeting love, and a sister she couldn't keep close, and cousins just out of reach, and the only friend she ever had bursting into flames from her hatred.
I'm so desperate for Anney and I hate her so much.
I have to wonder if she took Reese.
I have to wonder if Glen's hatred will transfer to Reese. Or if it will turn on Anney. Or how you could ever be intimate after something like that. Or how the silence would eat you alive of not ever talking about your daughter. Bone didn't have to forgive Anney, or talk to her, or anything, when she came on that porch. But she did. She cried to her mother, gripped her by her dress, pulled her close. And then her mother left.
It almost makes you hate Anney more than Glen.
This story was gripping. Terrible. Destructive. Heartbreaking. It was all of those things.
But there were things that took me out of it.
I could never really keep track of how old Bone was. The entire portion of the book that featured Shannon Pearl left Daddy Glen out of it. I had no idea if she was still being beaten. Sometimes I couldn't keep track of how the bodies were aligned during the molestation scenes, and so, as terrible as it was, it was hard to envision what was really happening to her. Sometimes it was also hard to keep track of aunts and uncles and cousins. Or like, at the beginning some characters we got to know well, like Granny, and then she essentially disappeared.
I feel sick to my stomach after reading that. And I think that's what was supposed to be accomplished by Allison telling that story. So. Five stars. Even though I could never put myself through reading it ever again.