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Having spent about a year being sat on my book trolley, I don’t know why I decided now was the time to finally read Betty. Perhaps I wanted a big, chunky book to sink my teeth into, maybe I just felt sorry for the poor book sitting waiting to be read.
SYNOPSIS: "A girl comes of age against the knife." So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family, and also, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.
But despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family's past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that have stung her so deeply, she could not tell them, until now.
Inspired by the life of her own mother, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by telling this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the freshest and most important voices in American fiction.
REVIEW: OK so first things first, Betty is not for the faint-hearted. With a truly heartbreaking plot and incredibly detailed/traumatic scenes, I wouldn’t say I necessarily ‘enjoyed’ the book but I have to say, one thing the book did incredibly well was it kept me hooked. It did, however, take me a few weeks to eventually finish this one because I never had that desire to pick it but, yet once I did, I just fell back into Betty’s world.
McDaniel creates such a vivid set of characters within a beautiful yet horrific location, Breathed. Situated in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, the small town of Breathed, Ohio is a character all its own and I could so vividly picture their house, the school Betty attends, the streets that Betty and her family walk around, and it was such a fantastic reading experience, and some of the images will definitely be in my mind for years to come. It’s written in a first-person narrative which makes the story even more intimate, with Betty hiding nothing from the reader.
For once, we have a loving father figure who definitely had to be my favourite member of the Carpenter family. The stories he shares are a brilliant way of helping his children to understand the way the world works and I loved the intricate ways in which he made sense of everyday moments. This humble, dear, vulnerable, loving father was what made the story and plot even more heartbreaking but also offered moments of complete purity and love - I don’t think I could love a character more.
I would definitely say that I’m happy to have finally read Betty but I wouldn’t say that it was a book that I necessarily enjoyed. I think the storytelling is what I loved the most about the book but the graphic scenes are not easy to read and there will definitely be scenes that I will find hard to forget about in time. I would recommend this book to those who can handle a graphic story but please make sure you read the trigger warnings for this book before diving in.
READ THIS IF:
✍️You love books that create such vivid imagery
✍️You admire great storytelling
✍️You don’t mind reading BIG books
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