PaperbackI've got a few problems with this book, the biggest of which is probably the fact that I live in the Ozarks (Springfield...but still) and kind of hate that the characters in this book now define our population for many readers. Most of us have never come across the cruel, loose, hillbilly mafia types depicted here.
Our 16-year-old heroine, Ree, is about to lose her house. Usually, this would be a problem for her parents to solve -- but her mom spends her days in a rocking chair, outside the realm of reality, and her father's bail-jumping disappearance is why her house is in jeopardy. She's gotta find pop and fast. In order to do so, she rambles all over the Ozark hills asking after him and getting told off, threatened, and brutally gang-beat for her trouble.
This is one of those rare instances where the movie far outshines the book on which it's based. The Ree on the page is too much a part of her disgusting culture to really feel her outsider-status. In the movie, she's tough but slightly above the others -- you understand her dream of joining the army as a need to escape to sanity rather than just the next step on the loser trail it seems in the book.
C+
