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A review by huncamuncamouse
West to a Land of Plenty: The Diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi by Jim Murphy
3.0
This was . . . fine? And seemed to have squandered some interesting opportunities? First, I think it's both inaccurate and manipulative to call this a "humorous" book (like the marketing copy here states). Several of the books have also incorporated humor, and this book actually ends on a pretty sad note.
This book took me a little bit to get into. The conceit of the dueling narrators was honestly kind of annoying. If you know that your sister is going to be reading your diary, would you actually confess any real secrets? And why would Netta want to write in the diary in the first place for that very same reason? It was one thing when Netta was snooping and correcting Teresa's spelling (that was kind of funny), but it went on way too long to be believable. And then it kind of felt like a cheap set-up to make readers extra sad when *spoiler* Netta dies.
Otherwise, it's weird that they're riding with family, but her uncle, aunt, and cousin are all really one-dimensional characters to the point where we know next to nothing about them, other than that for some cultural reason, Teresa's dad has to go along with his elder brother's plans.
I'm reading the books in the order they were published, so it's weird that this is book #8, and we already have ANOTHER book about migrating out west. Sure, technology and transportation have come a long way since Book #5, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie, but there were still too many similarities. And what was most interesting about this trip was that they were going to be part of a Utopian community! Like that would have been really interesting to see in action. But nope--the book ends before that community is even formed. I kind of wonder if that's the book Jim Murphy wanted to write and the publisher's squashed it. I think that was a mistake. I was way more interested in seeing the community come together instead of yet another voyage West.
However, Teresa does display a lot of personal growth as the book continues, and she is fiercely independent. There's this incredible conflict near the end where Teresa literally points a gun at two men and shoots at them. I honestly don't know how likely something like that would have been, but it was a great moment. And I like how she slowly gains confidence in her voice. The book also does a decent job highlighting the historic racism. A previous book discussed tensions between the Irish and Americans, but this one goes a step further and shows how Italians were discriminated against and sometimes had their own biases against people from other backgrounds and religions. It doesn't offer an easy explanation for this; a complicated historic moment is allowed to just kind of exist, and I think that's fine (although supplementing this book with other materials might be good for young readers to help them understand).
Ultimately, this book suffers for not having a unique enough plot (and being published too close to Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie), but it's still a serviceable volume in the Dear America series.
Dead Parent Count: 0, but there's possibly the most "shocking" death in the entire series--one of the narrators.
This book took me a little bit to get into. The conceit of the dueling narrators was honestly kind of annoying. If you know that your sister is going to be reading your diary, would you actually confess any real secrets? And why would Netta want to write in the diary in the first place for that very same reason? It was one thing when Netta was snooping and correcting Teresa's spelling (that was kind of funny), but it went on way too long to be believable. And then it kind of felt like a cheap set-up to make readers extra sad when *spoiler* Netta dies.
Otherwise, it's weird that they're riding with family, but her uncle, aunt, and cousin are all really one-dimensional characters to the point where we know next to nothing about them, other than that for some cultural reason, Teresa's dad has to go along with his elder brother's plans.
I'm reading the books in the order they were published, so it's weird that this is book #8, and we already have ANOTHER book about migrating out west. Sure, technology and transportation have come a long way since Book #5, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie, but there were still too many similarities. And what was most interesting about this trip was that they were going to be part of a Utopian community! Like that would have been really interesting to see in action. But nope--the book ends before that community is even formed. I kind of wonder if that's the book Jim Murphy wanted to write and the publisher's squashed it. I think that was a mistake. I was way more interested in seeing the community come together instead of yet another voyage West.
However, Teresa does display a lot of personal growth as the book continues, and she is fiercely independent. There's this incredible conflict near the end where Teresa literally points a gun at two men and shoots at them. I honestly don't know how likely something like that would have been, but it was a great moment. And I like how she slowly gains confidence in her voice. The book also does a decent job highlighting the historic racism. A previous book discussed tensions between the Irish and Americans, but this one goes a step further and shows how Italians were discriminated against and sometimes had their own biases against people from other backgrounds and religions. It doesn't offer an easy explanation for this; a complicated historic moment is allowed to just kind of exist, and I think that's fine (although supplementing this book with other materials might be good for young readers to help them understand).
Ultimately, this book suffers for not having a unique enough plot (and being published too close to Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie), but it's still a serviceable volume in the Dear America series.
Dead Parent Count: 0, but there's possibly the most "shocking" death in the entire series--one of the narrators.