sarahsez 's review for:

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

4.0

---

3.5

Although she's young, Rory Dawn Hendrix has no illusions about what she is. She's the "feeble-minded daughter of a feeble-minded daughter, herself the product of feeble-minded stock," destined for a hardscrabble existence in the Calle trailer park just like her Mama and Grandma. And just like she knows who she is, R.D. also knows the ways of trailer park life: 'uncles' who make the lights go out, which bars to call when you can't find your mama, the rules for peeing in a coffee can when the pipes don't work, the glory of the first and fifteenth of the month, and the grimness of all the days in between.

Despite its short length, this is not an easy read. It's a collection of traditional vignettes, social worker reports, excerpts from the Girl Scout Handbook, logic puzzles, and free verse descriptions. The lack of any real narrative arc means the success of the book comes down to the writing, but while some of it is incredible (just try reading about how the hardware man makes the lights go out without feeling R.D.'s sickness and dread), other flourishes aren't as successful (the word puzzles, for example). I thought some things were too ambiguous and required re-reading (

Spoiler

Viv was imaginary, right? And R.D. only called her Vivian Buck because she was narrating from the perspective of her adult self who knew who had already learned about the Bucks? So like, she did have an imaginary friend during her childhood, but that friend only became Vivian Buck in hindsight?

, which was a problem since I was listening to the audiobook. Finally, the unrelenting bleakness of this book made it emotionally exhausting, the glimmer of hope for R.D.'s future nonwithstanding... Overall, Girlchild is an ambitious and well-done novel, but definitely not a book for everyone.