“Nine year old Starla lives in the south in the 1960s with her grandmother. Her father works on an oil rig and rarely gets to visit, and her mother left when Starla was three and moved to Nashville to become a singer. When Starla runs away to find her mother, she finds herself in heaps of disastrous situations. Caught in a turbulent time between southern whites and African Americans, Starla learns more about the world, and herself, than she had ever anticipated.
I would recommend this book to those who enjoyed Secret Life of Bees, The Help, and Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.
While the story lines in this book at times feel very familiar, the tone, style, and language feel very authentic and original. I liked Starla from page one, and found her spunky, full-of-life attitude entertaining. The dialogue was rich and well-written, though I might have preferred more description of time and place to fill in the stories a bit more. I love that the ending was not all peaches-and-cream, and some works of fiction tend to be. Overall, I would recommend this book to those who enjoyed Secret Life of Bees, The Help, and Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. When it is released in the stories I will also be picking up a copy for my students’ historical fiction projects, since its easy, engaging plot will probably appeal to my high school kids.”
Author: Susan Crandall
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Mainstream Fiction
Release Date: 07/02/2013
Pages: 320 ISBN: 978-1476707723