38. The Silver Star - Jeannette Walls

audio read by the author (it was okay, but I've heard better, no offense Ms. Walls)

2013, Simon & Schuster Audio

7 unabridged cds

288 pgs.

Written for adults, but I think it's almost more YA

Finished 9/9/2013

Genre: HistFiction (1970 America-smalll town CA, but mostly rural VA)

Goodreads Rating: 3.64

My Rating: Liked it (3) 

TPPL

My comments:This is my first Jeannette Walls, and I enjoyed the story. Bean, the 6th grade protagonist, was a feisty, gutsy first person narrator. I'm not sure why this is billed as an adult novel, though, I would definitely consider it a young adult novel.  Sure there are some heavy-ish issues, but minor compared to some of the current YAs out there.  I enjoyed the 1970 spin on things (the mother sure seemed bipolar, but that would not have been the terminology in 1970), though other than the integration issues, it had a very contemporary feel (did anyone homeschool...or call it homeschooling...in 1970?)

Goodreads Review: It is 1970 in a small town in California. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, a woman who “found something wrong with every place she ever lived,” takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that’s been in Charlotte’s family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears many stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Because money is tight, Liz and Bean start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town—a big man who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older sister—inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz.