2012, Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic288 pages
Rating: It was okay/2
1st Sentence/s: (Prologue) "Kate had finally agreed to pose under the willow tree. Mother came and stood behind Mary at her easel. She placed her hand on Mary's shoulder. 'It's beautiful!'"
Setting: Contemporary El Paso, Texas
OSS: Two sister try to figure out how to survive when their preacher father dies leaving them homeless and fully in charge of caring for their mother, who is in a permanently vegetative state.
Both 18 year old Kate is about to get accepted with as a premed student with a full scholarship to Stanford and 16 year old Mary, who has an incredible artistic gift, have had very religious, protected lives. And since their mother's accident two years previously, their lives have been pretty joyless. Their father, who truly loved them, was a preacher of a small protestant congregation in El Paso, had no car, no money, and lived simply. Hand-me-downs and Walmart...no trips to the mall. Painting was a frivolous endeavor, and the University of Texas at El Paso was nearby and the only acceptable choice of college.
And then he drops dead of a heart attack, and there's more and more problems dropped on top of the two girls. Tough choices. Interesting relationships with boys, best friends. their aunt and only living relative, and the new young preacher that has been hired to take their father's place.
I read this book in one four-hour gulp. I knew that if I put it down I probably wouldn't come back to it. Why? I like the way that Stork developed his characters. The plot was plausible. I could relate to both Kate and Mary. There was just something....missing....for me, I'm not sure what. I was expecting to be blown away like I was with Stork's previous Marcelo in the Real World, and I wasn't. I wonder what I would have thought about this if I hadn't read Marcelo. I'll have to read some reviews and see how others feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment