Heather F. (AZmom875) - , reviewed on 2/27/2019 + 624 more book reviews

I am not new to the author Haven Kimmel. I have read two other books by her. A Girl named Zippy and She Got up off the Couch, both short memoir stories.

I do tend to be compulsive, in the way that when I get a new author, that I like start collecting the other books by them, So this book has sit on my bookshelf gathering real dust since Date Added: 2/15/2011. That is a long time. Since 2011, not only did I read the two books mentioned above, but in the last 3 years or so, I also listened to them on audio. Yes, I do tend to do that, read a book and also listen to it, In fact, I just ordered this book on audio because I want to hear it.

It had lots of poetry and prose written in the book and I want to hear it. Ok why all the poetry and prose? Let me tell you. There are two other characters, Laura, Cassie's mom and Belle, Cassie's older sister. All of these 3 characters have a deep and profound thought process that comes out in so much that they do. Three very different characters but very close in their close knit souls, that I really do think the author was just giving different skin, hair color and quirks to the same person. That same person was the author or her the author's real mother, they were hard to separate due to some overlapping similarities.


Let me explain, in Haven Kimmel's other two books, she writes true stories about her family. It is often said that an authors first books is really a just thinly veiled autobiography. You write what you lived. Well, since Haven's first books were memoirs about her family, this book just seems an fictionalized extension of her real life. Her mother marries due to pregnancy to a man who isn't really very rooted or a good provider, and then this woman finds herself and goes to college, and all about bookish, literary things. Yep there we go, real life and this book. Very similar, but well written.

Cassie also plays pool from time to time and wins, but that is more about beating the people who abandoned her and making them pay.

Lots of the book travels to dreams, or past experiences, write in the very middle of the present tense. I didnt find it confusing, but you really did have to pay attention to the main character drifting back into her thoughts in the middle of the present time.

I almost had to skip over one part, about Rattlesnake KITE, I thought it said Rattlesnake KIT, the mother had saved a copy of about 2 pages from an undeclosed book. It that short excerpt we find the name of the title of book. So dont skip that part.

I do have to say about Haven Kimmel, "what the hell?" Why is your writing so much more profound and deep than my life every will be? Who sees so much so deeply into the events of our lives? I guess Haven Kimmel does. And I want to be her for time. I guess I was for 267 pages. Great work.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details