Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons: This book is a punch in the gut, heart, and brain. The point of view and construction are odd, and the text written in a way to somehow perfectly reflect this. The timeline of the story is broken up. I didn't even try to analyze the tense for consistency, but it's mostly 1st person present tense and always Ellen's.
Not for the faint of heart, this one veers into R-rated territory in a non-gratuitous and somehow even more shocking way. I see why
this one is shelved in the adult literature section instead of according to the age of the protagonist as books so often are.
I wish they had established her age and the year clearly early on in the book. I found the dialect and the misspellings (used tastefully, not over-used) pretty believable. You as the reader have to pull pieces together from different timelines to put together a heartbreaking story of Ellen's journey from abusive family member to abusive family member and eventually safety.
The ending seemed a bit unexpected (it came back somewhat clumsily to an earlier theme that may have made more sense/seemed more natural to a Southern audience. Oddly enough, this became a very compelling exercise book, which led to increased ibuprofen use when I would overdo the stair climber because I just wanted to read a little further.
Thanks to T for the suggestion!
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