Diane Sherry Case

Elephant Milk is a surreal, coming of age story that takes place in 1969, mostly in Mexico. Amid her experiments with sex, drugs and finding herself, 17-year-old Sean also has to deal with her dysfunctional family and her mother's obsession with being a famous movie star. After finding some black clothes beside the road that are wet with blood, Sean makes the decision that the best way to deal with her problems is to run away to Mexico, after her boyfriend. Once in Mexico, Sean needs a way to get around, so she joins a traveling Circus... and that's where the real fun begins.

I should preface my remarks about this book by saying I'm not the intended audience for this book. Still, I appreciated some of the events in the story and the characterization. Diane Sherry Case has created some interesting characters, and has caught the flavor of the time depicted. So, with that said, why did I rate the book only 3 stars? Admittedly, this story even had 4 star potential, but the good characters just weren't likable enough... in fact, with the exception of Sean and her circus master/boss, and his wife, Ana, I found all the characters to be fairly neutral. There also is not any clear nemesis in the story, which could have made the book more interesting, if a bit longer. I had such high hopes for that too, when Sean found the bloody black clothing.

There are points in the story that would make for good discussion group material and the intended audience may appreciate Sean and her confused time of self-enlightenment more than I could. Oh, and the cover art - absolutely wonderful. That's what drew me to this book in the first place.

This book was received free from the author in exchange for this review. This review has been simultaneously posted at Dragon Views, LibraryThing, and Amazon.com… (plus d'informations)

What first caught my eye was the cover, I love it. Next was the name of the book. It does catch your attention at least it did mine. Sean is 17 in 1969. So easy to fall in love hard and fast. Frank her first real love is a jerk, but she follows him down to Mexico. Since she doesn't know where he went she joins a Circus so she can go/travel from town to town to hunt him down. Along the way she meets some interesting characters and she is still on the naive side. Sean throws herself into everything. It doesn't help her mother doesn't really care about her well being. There are some interesting twists and drama going on.… (plus d'informations)