Review: 
I chose wisely. Rereading my books from 1988 wasn't some sort of plan, my choices are always usually more random: putting a book on a shelf and spotting another, going over a bookcase to purge a few...that sort of thing. But there, my first tow squares are devoted to rereads and I am not sorry. There are a few new-to-me planned. I've spent some more time looking over my card, my list, and my TBR stack, matching up a few. My stack is rather more heavy on the mysteries: fourteen of my squares don't have a book waiting for them so far.
But I was saying, this book was an excellent choice. There hasn't been a lot of Southern on my stack for a while, except Whiskey in a Teacup, which we'll just move quickly by. So, it was good to wallow in the heat for a bit, to sit down to Southern food (only fictionally, I'm not otherwise a fan), to enjoy the familiar from a different angle. Lena's world somewhat resembles mine, but from the other side of segregation.
Things I envy most: her big old house, and the adults swearing. While I would have loved to have grown up with my maternal grandmother in the house, my paternal grandmother would not have been possible: she scared the hell out of everyone. Aunt Shirley was the only local daughter-in-law, she saw MawMaw all the time, and never had the nerve to smoke in front of her, not in forty-some years of marriage. The other three children fled as far away as they could.
Also, the plotlessness was a break from my usually story-driven choices. There's an arc,
but it's more a way to connect all the different vignettes. You'd call it picaresque if Lena were more rebellious, as it is, hmmm. Really, I'm not sure at all. But it was fun to see "Co-Cola".
Personal inscribed, signed and dated copy for which I thank the author. She was delightful and charming for the short time I spent with her.
Original post: Defenestraethe.booklikes.com/post/1948559/baby-of-the-family-tina-mcelroy-ansa
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