Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall
There are many things to like about this book, and many things to dislike. It was on a list of recommended reading for young adult summer reading, which is why I checked it out. And the story would be excellent for young adults, except it goes into too much detail about Olivia's sexual encounters. I know I sound like a conservative nun, but I just don't think graphic details are necessary to tell a good story, especially for a story that is written for young adults. We really don't need to go into the woods with Olivia and her boyfriend; just send them there and let our imaginations understand what they are doing. One positive aspect of this book, however, is that the language is not as offensive as in some books written for young adults. I wouldn't put this book on my classroom book shelf, however, since the merits of the story do not outweigh the graphic sexual content. I'm not sure that we need to teach young readers that irresponsible sexual behavior has no lasting repercussions and is, in fact, romantic and desirable. (Olivia has frequent sex with her teenage boyfriend, and I prefer not to be a voyeur to the encounters.) I figure the reason Wall includes all that sex is that in order for a 40ish year old woman's point of view to be appealing, young readers need to think of her as a sexual young woman rather than an older, life-worn grandmother. The character of Will'm, Olivia's grandson, would be more appealing to young readers but his character is not well developed.
As an adult reader, I thought the character of Olivia Harker Cross was intriguing, but the plot speeds up and slows down too much. Olivia's childhood makes her a sympathetic characterer, but the author speeds up the details of her young adulthood. I understand why: if the author developed the middle part of Olivia's life as much as her childhood, we wouldn't like her very much. As the story is told, we care about the young child with the crazy mother who doesn't love her, we are sympathetic to the single father who is trying to eke out a living during the Depression in rural Kentucky, we appreciate Olivia's blinding love for her father. The part about Olivia becoming sexually promiscuous and rejecting her own daughter would make us not care for her if the author had developed the story better. (As a critical reader, I did not like the inequity of detail, but then no one pays me to write books either.) I'm not sure why Wall includes the horrible scenes of the state mental institution toward the end of the book; it almost detracts from the main storyline. (well, it does detract since the book is not about the horrible conditions of state institutions in Kentucky during Prohibition.)
Killing the wolves on the mountain adds dimension to the plot, but when you think about it, you have to wonder why the bad guys weren't killing wolves all along. They seem to begin killing them when Olivia is an adult and can be righteosly outraged, even though the reason they are being killed began when Olivia was a child.
As an adult reader, I thought the character of Olivia Harker Cross was intriguing, but the plot speeds up and slows down too much. Olivia's childhood makes her a sympathetic characterer, but the author speeds up the details of her young adulthood. I understand why: if the author developed the middle part of Olivia's life as much as her childhood, we wouldn't like her very much. As the story is told, we care about the young child with the crazy mother who doesn't love her, we are sympathetic to the single father who is trying to eke out a living during the Depression in rural Kentucky, we appreciate Olivia's blinding love for her father. The part about Olivia becoming sexually promiscuous and rejecting her own daughter would make us not care for her if the author had developed the story better. (As a critical reader, I did not like the inequity of detail, but then no one pays me to write books either.) I'm not sure why Wall includes the horrible scenes of the state mental institution toward the end of the book; it almost detracts from the main storyline. (well, it does detract since the book is not about the horrible conditions of state institutions in Kentucky during Prohibition.)
Killing the wolves on the mountain adds dimension to the plot, but when you think about it, you have to wonder why the bad guys weren't killing wolves all along. They seem to begin killing them when Olivia is an adult and can be righteosly outraged, even though the reason they are being killed began when Olivia was a child.
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