DO NOT read this while waiting to have your oil changed!!! I was finishing the novel while waiting to have my husband's car oil changed, and I did not have any tissues to wipe my eyes. I kept wiping my eyes hoping my mascara was not running. My daughter thought I was crazy when I reached over and rubbed her back while reading the novel. If I was at home, I would have given both my children hugs and rubbed their backs while reading this book.
Thanks, Katie, for telling me this is a good book and I should read it. She just told me that is is a book that has a gay character in it, and Knowles handled it very well. Since our librarian is wanting to know what books about gays are good that we can recommend to students, I thought I would give this one a try. Just like The Fault in Our Stars and A Dog's Purpose, this is a tear jerker. Just because I pet my dog while reading A Dog's Purpose, I did not feel the need to hug my own children throughout reading this novel: only the last third of it.
Fern feels like the invisible third child in her family (think of Greg in Diary of a Wimpy Kid). These two families have a lot in common. She has an older sister Sarah, who just graduated high school; a fourteen-year old brother, Holden; and a three-year old brother, Charlie, who is treated as the important child. Her parents own a family restaurant/ice cream parlor (Harry's) that Fern thinks her dad focuses on more than his own family. (Let me know if you think the parents chose the right names for their children.)
Fern, or Ferny as Charlie calls her, begins her first day of middle school seeing "Thing One and Two" torturing her brother on the school bus and wondering why he doesn't do anything about it. While Fern and her family struggle with Holden acknowledging that he is gay and another tragedy in the family, Fern also has to deal with accepting that she is growing up too. This is a heart wrenching story that I could see as one of ABC Family's made for TV movies, but we would lose out on what is going on inside Fern's head through these trials.
This is a fast read to reinforce how important our family members are.
No comments:
Post a Comment