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I hold onto my Handbook because nothing else makes promises like that around here, promises with these words burning inside them: honor, duty and try. Try and duty I hear all the time, as in "try to get some sleep," and "get me some duty-free cigarettes from the Indian store," while honor's reserved solely for the Honorable Joseph A. on The People's Court, as in, "Your Honor, I was just trying to get my wallet out for the duty-free cigs when my gun went off," but these words never ever show their faces together and much less inside a promise.
Rory Hendrix is not a registered Girl Scout in any sense of the word. She doesn't have a troop or any badges, but she's obsessed with the Girl Scout Handbook. She checks it out of the library over and over to serve as her guide to surviving her childhood in the Calle de los Flores, the Reno trailer park where she lives with her mother. This book has a narrator and a clear plot, but it is told in part through journal entries, social worker reports, letters, the family mythology, and court documents so it meanders a bit. Also, the interspersed bits from the Girl Scout Handbook are totally surreal in the context of Rory's life -- like, this girl navigating her very difficult life very much needs advice about The Right Use of Your Body and Finding Your Way When Lost, but maybe the Girl Scouts had something different in mind...
This book is well-written, although sometimes it got a little too "writerly" for my tastes. The story will twist your heart around in a very painful way. The characters of the Calle are tangible, despicable and real. Rory is an wise, sassy, terrified and brave girl. If you like to read about difficult, working-class childhoods with hardscrabble heroines who suffer many painful moments that will make you shudder, you would probably enjoy this book. I mean, who doesn't cheer for the smartypants underdog from a line of "imbeciles, feeble-minded bastards surely on the road to whoredom"?
And, of course, I loved the power and magic that Rory lends to the Girl Scouts. Even if it was surreal and strange, it was a desperate kind of survival magic that genuinely helped her. It was touching. It was about kids' abilities to survive and flourish.
Also, I hate to be so precious, but here's a quote from Rory.
“I may not have been born captain of this boat, but I was born to rock it.”