Bastard Out of Carolina (Essential Edition): (Plume Essential Edition)

Bastard out of Carolina was a hard book for me to read. It’s full of rage and pain and trauma because it is capturing the shape of real rage and pain and trauma. It is dark because dark things happen. The narrator is a child slowly losing naïveté but without enough well-rounded experience to stop being seen as innocent. She is hurt and confused because she is being hurt without reason or sense. Nominally she is blamed but it isn’t her fault, it can’t be. Minimizing spoilers, Bastard out of Carolina requires trigger warnings for child abuse and rape. It is a good book, one that should be read either as a window or an outlet, for it is worth your time and your attention. “Enjoy” is not the word, but I recommend Bastard out of Carolina for how it crosses taboos to reach for wordless rage and common traumatic …

More like 2 1/2 stars.

For some reason I did not really like this book. And I don't know why as it's the kind of book I usually love... Coming of age, character study, southern gothic. The characters in this book never came to life for me. I never really felt I understood or especially cared for anyone in the extended Boarwright family. They were caricatures at best. I especially hated the ending. It did not ring true to me. I don't know, maybe because I was not raised white trash, but I can not see a mother running away with the husband she just witnessed raping and brutalizing her young daughter. I don't care how much she loved him before that day. Or how sorry she felt for him.

Or like the best thing the mother ever did for her child was get her a birth certificate without the …