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A review by nssutton
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
At first, I fell for this book hook, line a sinker - Keeper's mysterious birth origins and the plight of ten crabs and GOOD LORD GUMBO IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. I am a city girl, who prefers to work with city kids, but have always been and will always be drawn to stories of the sea. I can't even recall how many times I re-read Jacob Have I Loved as a little girl, but I can recall the jolt I felt re-reading it as an adult. My memories of Sara Louise are stronger than those of my own life at that time.
But, as a rule of thumb, I thumb my nose at books with major animal characters. I skipped Appelt's other hot book, The Underneath, for that reason and she almost lost me with the over-empathic brigade of animals. And the more involved that the plot got, the more the animals played a part. And I started to look from my copy of Keeper to my recently purchased copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go and then back and forth again and suddenly realized that I had a Problem.
It's the mad dash to the Cybils finish line. If I'm having trouble focusing on a title 100% at this point and looking too far into my to-read queue, even if it's amazing and intriguing and I'm sure that by the end I'll like it, well, then I've got to put it aside and move on to the next thing.
I promise to come back to it, as I'm intrigued by the mermaid angle, but for now I've got some other library-procured Cybils short list candidates that need my immediate attention. After this last, long, sad look at that beautiful, thick, enticing copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go that is..
But, as a rule of thumb, I thumb my nose at books with major animal characters. I skipped Appelt's other hot book, The Underneath, for that reason and she almost lost me with the over-empathic brigade of animals. And the more involved that the plot got, the more the animals played a part. And I started to look from my copy of Keeper to my recently purchased copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go and then back and forth again and suddenly realized that I had a Problem.
It's the mad dash to the Cybils finish line. If I'm having trouble focusing on a title 100% at this point and looking too far into my to-read queue, even if it's amazing and intriguing and I'm sure that by the end I'll like it, well, then I've got to put it aside and move on to the next thing.
I promise to come back to it, as I'm intrigued by the mermaid angle, but for now I've got some other library-procured Cybils short list candidates that need my immediate attention. After this last, long, sad look at that beautiful, thick, enticing copy of The Knife of Never Letting Go that is..