I picked up this book while walking with Jace. A house on Magnolia Street had free books on a bookshelf in the front yard. That was about a year and a half ago.
I had heard of the book, but not much about it. Sometimes, I wondered why I had picked it up. I'm glad I did--I really enjoyed this coming of age story and hope to see the movie.
Lily Owens is a fourteen-year-old girl living on a farm with a peach orchard with her cold and abusive father in Sylvan, South Carolina in 1964. Lily longs for her mother who died ten years earlier. Her only friend is Rosaleen a black woman who Lily's father hired to cook, clean, and be Lily's "stand-in mother."
After an encounter with local racists when Rosaleen is attempting to register to vote, Lily helps Rosaleen escape from the hospital. They make their way to Tiburon, South Carolina and the home of the Boatwright sisters where Lily hopes to find out more about her mother.
Lily is a compelling narrator--I love how she sees the world around her.
I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.
If the heat goes over 104 degrees in South Carolina, you have to go to bed. It is practically the law. Some people may see it as shiftless behavior, but really, when we're lying down from the heat, we're giving our minds time to browse around for new ideas, wondering at the true aim of life, and generally letting things pop into our heads that need to.
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