ŷ������

The whole point of the book seems to be to help kids understand that adults are “real people�� and have feelings too. However, the girls have been through unspeakable trauma and they really do need the adults to be adults. Patty takes them away from their mother and then makes everything all about her. I can relate to this, certainly. This is how I remember most adults being as I was growing up. But I don’t agree with the idea that kids should have to see them with understanding and compassion. The adults are supposed to behave like adults, not the kids!

We’re meant to believe that Willa Jo and Aunt Patty are alike but Willa Jo is actually more mature. Even though her aunt behaves terribly she says, “…it doesn’t seem right to tell Uncle Hob that Aunt Patty is a problem��.�� She has more insight and self-control than we ever see in Aunt Patty.

Perhaps Aunt Patty means well, but again, I don’t see it so the author has failed. I see a petulant woman whose feelings are hurt when these deeply traumatized children don’t appreciate her for taking them away from their home and mother to make them live shallow lives in her vapid world. And, of course she always knows best and never listens to Willa Jo.

In the “About the author�� blurb we’re told that her writing was influenced by the relationships she had with adults when growing up. Of course it was. We all had those adults in our lives. Almost all of the adults were like that. Reading this book brought back all the fury and powerlessness, and at the same time placed the responsibility on the child to be compassionate. I don’t like it!

The ending is tender and poignant and it made me cry but that didn’t make the rest of the book worth it.