Lizzie feeds the two of them by fishing and tending the vegetable garden. She puts her mom to bed at night and gets her up in the morning. She does the laundry (which procedure is described in detail) and fixes her mom cups of tea. She has always been a top student (another demand of her father's). But now her heavy responsibilities mean her grades are slipping, to the delight of her nemesis, a thoroughly mean girl named Erin Sawyer whose family has recently moved to Alabama from Georgia. Erin wants to be top dog above all else, and, among other unreasonable demands, continually harangues Lizzie to pull out of an essay contest they have both entered.
Lizzie is not completely likable, and that might be a stumbling block for some readers. Specifically, she is quite self-centered, and when her friend Ben confronts her about it, we root for him. But not only does the author keep many readers (judging by the love this book has gotten) rooting for Lizzie in spite of her rather blatant faults, but she manages, in first-person narration, to convey that Lizzie is a somewhat unreliable narrator. The characterization, setting, and writing itself are nicely done.
We keep hearing that the Depression era has been overdone in historical fiction, yet here it is again. I would probably read any number of Depression-era novels, and apparently I have lots of company. Minor quibbles: This is yet another mother/child role-reversal story, and I'm honestly full-up on those. Erin is allowed to be much brattier in front of adults than I believe a child of that era could have gotten away with. And I just didn't buy the name Erin. For an obviously Irish character that might have been okay, but Erin was a popular name in the 1970s and '80s, not in 1917, the approximate year of the MC's birth. But as I said, minor quibbles. This is highly recommended.
0 Comments on Every Day After, by Laura Golden as of 1/1/1900
Add a Comment