My poems were as wide as my arms were not. They were as loud as I was silent. They were a hot whisper saying sometimes love is a punishment.
Betty
by Tiffany McDaniel
Genre: Literary Fiction
About: Betty Carpenter grows up in Ohio in the 1960s, during a time when having a white mother and a Cherokee father meant that she would always been seen as Other. Her siblings can pass for white, but not Betty. But just as she can't hide her ancestry, she learns their are some family secrets that can't be hidden. Ones that she'll need strength to face and one day bring to light.
The Good
This story is as heart-wrenching as it is beautifully written. It's a love letter to family. To sisterhood. To a father's strength and a child's innocence. It both paints a nostalgic adulation of family, as well as brutally tearing through the cracks. The characters have souls; you feel the ghosts of them in Betty's memories and you come to care so deeply for them that they live deep in the words. There were a lot of characters but I never once felt confused with who was who because everyone is given such memorable detail and raw moments that it's impossible to mistake them. Landon Carpenter feels as monumental a character as Atticus Finch. People are complicated in this novel, their stories are often tragic, but their souls shine bright.
The Bad
This is many stories and it is no story. There isn't a main plot to follow and although Betty is a strong main character, it isn't really her story. At times it can feel as though we're chasing tragedy. I cried many, many times while reading this but it felt self-inflicted, as though there was a person telling me they'd punch me if I kept turning the page - and yet I kept turning the page.
The Somewhat Iffy
I didn't enjoy the Breathanian newspaper snippets. They read like satire and were a very different tone from the rest of the novel.
I also was very confused with the resolution to Leland. I didn't quite understand the thing about the fire and he felt a little unreal at the end with his villainous dialogue.
Overall
There's so much beauty and so much tragedy in these pages. I loved the complexity given to the characters and the strength passed from generation to generation. It's love surviving the harshest conditions. It's family surviving death.
Comments