Tuesday, Mar 30, 2010

Book Review… The Memory Thief by Rachel Keener

Website:  http://www.rachelkeener.com

Publisher: Center Street/Hachette

ISBN #:   978-1-59995-112-6

Type:  Fiction:General

Pages: 370 Trade Paperback

Published:  March 12, 2010

Purchase:  $10.07 (HERE) 

The Review

Two women’s stories are braided together, separate, yet connected.  The reader has no real way of tying this distraught runaway, Angel, to Hannah, a conservative and restricted girl tightly ruled by her religious parents’ confines.  As different as they are, they are both trying to escape what constricts them, what suffocates their spirits.

Angel’s story begins after her family deserts her, she sets fire to her home, and flees to the mountains on sheer instinct that there is something, or someone, waiting for her there.  With what little she had in her pocket, she depended upon sheer survival instinct to find her way to the top.  Unfortunately, it was a bumpy road in which she was faced with trouble along the way. 

While Angel was the victim of an abusive family, an impoverished life, and abandonment, Hannah’s family held the opposite attributes. It could be said that Hannah’s family dynamic could ”look like” too much love, however it was truly oppression and suffocation in disguise.  Restricted to wearing outlandishly conservative clothes and hairstyles, she was expected to be the picture of piosity.  During one summer while her parents were on a religious mission on a South Carolina island, she took the initiative to secure a summer job at a local shrimp shack and motel.  Having never worked in the public before, performed any manual labor, nor interacted with down-to-earth “folk,” this job gave her the opportunity to experience an entirely new world… one which accepted her for who she was.  Her co-workers and customers didn’t judge her as those did back home.  She wasn’t categorized by her clothes, hair, nor reputation.  In fact, her new boss gave her a t-shirt to wear for work.  Hannah had never been allowed to wear a cotton t-shirt.  She had only been permitted stifling hot polyester long skirts and shirts.  Hannah felt shades of freedom for the first time. 

In her new-found confidence, Hannah met a boy whom became her first love.  Like many young summer loves, they aren’t meant to last forever.  Losing this relationship and the dream of “forever” impacted Hannah in a way that could not be anticipated.

With two such separate lives, how does this braid become one, tied together in the end?  That’s the craft of Keener’s wonderful story-telling.  This well-crafted, knitted tale of two women enveloped my mind; I simply couldn’t put the book down.  The latter part of the novel was quite suspenseful and kept me wanting for more.  I needed the answers; I needed the resolve. 

I’ve read some terrific reviews of Keener’s The Killing Tree which she wrote while finishing law school.  I’m tempted to grab myself a copy.  If that book is 1/2 as good as this one, it’s next on my Kindle list!

OH… she’s also an author who’s open to Book Clubs, so I would recommend this one for your next book club selection.

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