Helpful Score: 1
I thought this was excellent, kind of melancholy. I could really identify with the young main charater, feeling like there had to be something more exciting than her life right around the corner. The way her thoughts are revealed is so raw and believable.
Five stars.
A touching ciming-of-age novel about a Southern girl.
A touching ciming-of-age novel about a Southern girl.
I love Carson McCuller and this is one of her best.
"The Member of the Wedding" is a story of a lonely twelve-year-old girl searching for a place to belong. It is well-written and makes me want to read additional works by Ms. McCullers.
Horrible! This is the story of a 12 year old girl, Frankie, who comes up with the ridiculous fantasy that her soon-to-be-wed brother and his new wife will take her with them after the wedding. Frankie's thoughts and action make her sound more like a 4-year-old who needs a nap! At one point, she wanders around her little town, cornering total strangers to tell them all about the upcoming wedding and how she won't be coming back afterward. Her behavior as the bride and groom leave the wedding reception just doesn't ring true as the actions of a 12 year old girl.
This book was horrible. Disconnected, hazy and weird, I couldn't follow the ploy enough to get into it. That never happens to me!
This southern fiction classic is a dreamy, hazy meandering walk through an unnamed southern town in an unnamed southern state (although I suspect it to be the author's home state of Georgia) through the eyes of an imaginative 12-year old during World War II. The characters were developed superbly and the use of language was creative and unexpected. With all the focus on The Help these days, it is hard not to pay attention to the characterization of Berenice, the family's black maid, and her relationship to Frankie and John Henry. These relationships were central to the story. McCullers presents Berenice with a genuineness and honesty that would have been difficult to achieve in a contemporary work of southern fiction. McCullers was writing about her times at the time and this results in less cliche and, instead, feels very real.
Delightful! The main character, F. Jasmine, reminds me in many ways of the heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird. Not as dramatic a novel, it is of the maturation of a young girl in the deep South.
I liked it a lot better now than when it was required reading in high school
