We are going toward a more- should I say "mature" audience now. Speak I believe is typical in a lot of circumstances yet not in others. For instance, young adults do tend to have their separate “clicks.” I do think her parents were negligent but when I was in school I would sneak out when I stayed over at my friends house because her parents wouldn’t hear us leave. It was not that I was promiscuous, but I got into a lot of learning experiences for a naive teenager. Although from all the other kids I knew, not one time did I hear of someone being raped. It may have been the sound of the times, I don’t know. We never locked our door either. However, my parents were always lenient and I didn’t break the home laws of going to school and do my chores etc. It may have been because of the small town. In Doing It, the story became more typical to real life for me, except for the teacher thing. All the students I knew looked up to the teachers. We may have joked and, as I did, attend college parties when they were there but they were still above our realm. I would be embarrassed to go to that class for a week or so.
Back to Evie. I enjoyed the book and thought it was a realistic perception of the family structure to a gay or lesbian child. Written in 1994 it was probably more realistic than today. For instance, the blatant denial that something was different from the parents. Perhaps not then but today it would seem friends, neighbors and family members would have been saying something to the parents. In the atmosphere of today, it would also seem that there is a more acceptable coming out of the closet so to speak. The mother seemed typical to notice but not accept it by always trying to get her to be more feminine. I would also agree with the way the father felt toward Evie as he saw her as someone he never knew, and didn’t know how to cope with that. The life structure for the family was quite dynamic for all the things going on all at once, but sometimes it seems that is how it happens such as; finding out about Evie, the flood, Mr. Duffman, everyone leaving the farm, the older brother becoming a vet, and loosing all the pigs. Whew, that would be a lot to bear. The book gave all sides of how the family members felt and thought. The way the community acted was also realistic. One person was just acting out while the other was the blame. The way Angel acted when she heard the rumors and her family didn’t want Evie around her was probably true for peoples fears. There were several killings of gays back in the late 80’s or 90’s as I recall.
Being lead blogger, I need to ask "what do all of you think about the book." Do you agree with it and do you think Evie should have stayed with her family?
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2 comments:
Honestly I really wasn't a fan of the book. I do think that it was well written and very realistic of how a family and town, especially out in the country, might react to finding out their daughter is a lesbian. The mom would probably try and push her towards being more feminine in the hopes that she might change her ways. The dad would probably choose to not wonder why his daughter was so "manly". And the brothers would probably accept her for who she is, or even just ignore it. They migt even be embarrassed. I also think there would be people in town who would gossip about it, as they did in the book, and people would choose to not hang around with the "lesbian". Because the book included all of these things I did appreciate it.
However, I just did not like the book. Usually I can pick up a book and get absorbed right away. With this book I would only read 2 pages and put it down because it was so boring. Once I was a few chapters into it it became more readable and I sympathized with Evie and her family. I also did not like the way the book ended. It seemed there was no closure for anyone and no ones view changed for the better towards Evie. I guess the writer was just being realistic, since that's how life is sometimes...
I completely agree with Jolene. It's not that it was a bad book, but honestly it was boring! I couldn't keep my eyes open when I was trying to read it. But being from a small town myself, I know what it's like to get information like Evie being a lesbian and how that news spreads quickly and soon enough everyone knows and everyone has an opinion on it. It can be really frustrating and I think that Evie's family is just trying to prepare themselves, even if it is trying to make her into someone that she isn't. Not only can I see her mother trying to protect their family, but also Evie. I think she just tries to push her to act like a "girl" because her mother realizes what she's going to have to go through and deal with and as a mother it's her instinct to try and stop the hurt before it begins. It was a well-written book, and as Jolene said, the auther was just writing realistically. But unfortunately, it just did not keep my interest.
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