girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

Listening to a Books on the Nightstand podcast, one of the hosts talked about girlchild.

Basically he said:
Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman – This is a book that truly blew me away. Uncomfortable and unbearably sad at times, this story of young trailer park resident Rory Dawn Hendrix features writing unlike anything I’ve read before.

I 100% agree. I couldn't sit and read this in one go, no matter how much I liked it.

Let's start somewhere here:

1) This is the author's debut novel and I'm amazed and in awe. The writing was skillful but packed an emotional wallop. It was truly a messy book but put together so well. Kudos Tupelo!

2) The story of Rory Dawn Hendrix is heartbreaking. Because of her family she is described as one of the "third generation bastards surely on the road to whoredom". girlchild depicts a life in a trailer park outside of Reno and it's not a pretty life. It's not even an okay life. It's a sad, scary life that Rory Dawn tries to make sense of using the Girl Scout Handbook from the library.

The end is unresolved. You root for Rory Dawn but somehow you just aren't sure she's going to make it out of the life she was thrown in to.

Uncomfortable, heartbreaking, with an optimistic twist in there.