This book wasn't really my type of book. The plot was OK, but it didn't really grab my attention. The same goes for the writing style. I found it to be clunky in places, but, overall, it was OK. I also found some sections to be too informal, almost like it was transcribed from a recording. However, I did like the concept of the story...the first person historical narrative. That was neat. ( )

This is a beautifully written book of growing up in 1940s-1950s Alabama. Hoy grows up poor, but her memoir is full of a child’s fun and dreams. She manages to also write about the troubled ways of the adults in her life with sensitivity.

As an African American child in the South, Hoy relates her own personal journey toward the civil rights movement. She learns about her heritage while learning both her present and future place in history.

This is a beautiful and sensitive memoir. ( )

First, I did enjoy the book. Most of it was very easy to read the way it was written, much of it very poetic but there were times in the book when the author would be describing a very serious matter and the next paragraph would just skip to another subject and not really have any connection. There is also a bit of conflict that confused me as far as the author describing her childhood and seemed to be happy despite being poor then the next chapter starts that she is stilled troubled. The story itself was wonderful, the authors writing was poetic but the flow of the book could have been a little smoother. ( )

Although this book was kind of hard for me to read for the fact that the stories frequently jumped around to basically unrelated events and memories in Cat's life I thoroughly appreciated the experience. I just could not imagine living in such a world of fear and degradation and not completely falling apart. How hard it would be to grow up in a world that seemingly does not want you, or at the very least will not protect you. How hard to live where questions are not tolerated and the "right way" is the only way even though that means lowering yourself to fit the mold someone has set for you.

A powerful look and the pre-civil rights south. ( )

“There is a hardness to life that I couldn’t understand.” ~Hoy Kersh

Ms. Kersh's wonderful prose brings me back to the first time I read Harper Lee's, "To Kill a Mockingbird". Her descriptions of her family, her surroundings and growing up in the tumultuous South make you feel like you were right there beside her. From her days in Catholic school, to her grandmother's strength, to the civil rights movement, this book is Ms. Hersh's journey towards a new life.

Thank you to Ms. Kersh and PR by the Book for giving me the opportunity to review this book. ( )