If I don’t much like spending time with the characters in a novel, especially the narrator, it’s hard to summon up enough interest in the plot and the writing to finish the book. Ms. Amelia warns her readers at the beginning of her “personal memoir” that the book is private and that she’s not a goody two-shoes, but rather a liar and a user of bad language. So enter at your own risk.
Actually, the lying and the cursing were mild and not nearly as off-putting as the title of the first chapter: “My mother tried to kill me before I was born. Even then I disappointed her.” The author proceeds to spend the first nine tenths of the book making us hate Amelia’s mother who is racist, hypocritical, cruel, neglectful, and cold-hearted. Then at the very end we’re supposed to have a change of heart, along with Amelia, and understand that Mrs. Rye “really did love [Amelia]. She just didn’t know how to show it.”
Sorry, I’m not buying. Amelia isn’t the most lovable child I’ve ever met between the pages of a book, but at least I could make excuses for her. Her father deserted her, and her mother “took a flying leap out the window” when she found out she was pregnant with Amelia. So it’s a wonder Amelia turned out as well as she did.
The chapters in this book are somewhat episodic. The first gives some family history, and the others tell stories of how Amelia’s mother mistreats her daughter or how Amelia makes a friend or how Amelia’s jailbird brother returns home. If there’s an overarching theme it comes in the form of a platitude given to Amelia by her grandfather (before he has a stroke that makes him unable to communicate): “All a person needs in life is one true friend.”
True enough. However, the nice people in this book are not very interesting, and the mean people are just too mean for me to want to spend time understanding them. If a child had good parents and read this book, it might make him thankful for what he’s got. If a child had bad or absent parents and read this book, it might make her want to burn the book for suggesting that a mother as cruel as Amelia’s had redeeming features–even if she does.
Not my cup of tea.
Hi Sherry
It’s good to know that there are other bloggers out there, who are not afraid to admit that they didn’t like a book.
I visit lots of other blogs and come away with the idea that everyone likes everything they read, and in real life, it just isn’t like that.
You can still blog about it constructively, because someone else may have a different opinion to yourself, but I know that I certainly don’t enjoy every book I read.
Yvonne