Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Lullabies for Little Criminals


by Heather O'Neill.

Quickie Recap: Baby is being "raised" by her junkie dad, who had her when he was all of 15. Really, he's barely capable of keeping tabs on her, as evidenced by her constantly falling into the hands of others - foster homes, detention centres, homeless shelters - and all of these better than her fate if the pimp who has his eye on her gets his way.

Quickie Review: Oh, sigh. Big sigh. This has been in my to-read pile for so long that I'm so tickled to have finally gotten to it. It was worth the wait! My friend Luc read it just before me and gave it his seal of approval so of course I couldn't wait to rip into it. But then I stalled. Well, not stalled, exactly. But my enthusiasm paled. Not because the writing wasn't stellar, because it was, but because it's tough. You want to give this little girl a home, even though you know she's not real, but your chest tightens because you know there are actual little girls just like her. It's messy. It makes you emotional. I kept looking up from my book to exclaim things because I needed to interrupt myself, cut the tension. Really, really good read.

Quickie Recommendation:

1 comment:

Lisa said...

The cover is great, the title is great, and I have nothing against a book that makes you hurt a little. I'll have to pick this up.