Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
"The thing about Breathed is that she gives you both the ripe fruit and the rotted in the very same bite."
A big 'Thank you' goes out to Tiffany McDaniel for the ARC!
Betty is not for the faint of heart. I think it broke a bit of my soul and kept the pieces for itself. McDaniel's writing is as hauntingly poetic as it is devastating in the way it weaves such layered and complex commentary into a disturbing story. While her previous work reminded me of The Crucible and Invisible Man, this one was reportedly inspired by the life of the author's mother and was more reminiscent of The Bluest Eye with undertones of Virginia Woolf's more contemplative essays in its rhythmic lyricism.
In 1954, Betty Carpenter was born half-Cherokee into a family full of holes and a world made for heartache with words bursting out of her skin. Her mother was a haunted house and her father was doing his best to keep a fire in the hearth and the roof from caving in. Despite being dirt poor, he worked to keep food the mouths of his their children and to nourish their souls with stories of their heritage. Betty listened the best, she looked to her father's stories to help the harsh world around her make sense and let his tales give inspiration to her own as she journeyed from childhood into adulthood.
This story hit me differently than The Summer That Melted Everything. While they are both exemplary pieces of heavy-hitting literary examination of the human condition, I couldn't devour this one as quick and constant as I did the other, not because it wasn't just as good-- it was--but in different ways. This book was mentally and emotionally exhausting for me. The sheer pain and sorrow exhibited in the pages pushed me to the very edge of my breaking point many times, going as far as to consider whether or not my heart could take another word, only to have the next paragraph offer the smallest glimpse of hope that was so raw in its beauty that it made me keep going. Hurt and grief and sickening devastation haunt this story, but so do love, laughter, and triumph. The good chases the bad until the bad circles back... but which one will catch Betty?
Check it out on Goodreads
Read my review of The Summer That Melted Everything