MotherReader

Today brings us part four of my five-post response to the Five Interesting Things meme. Pulling this from my 100 Things About Me list is especially on-target for today’s book review.

66. In college, I was a psychology major.
67. I used my major after college for one year.
68. Unless you include counseling my crazy family.

My childhood as the last hippie child was fairly stable, but there did seem to be such a strong emotional current to everything. Now, as my parents have gotten older, I’ve noticed the current being more like actual waves, and in the case of their divorce, one might call it a tsunami. Sometimes I look back at childhood now with a much more adult perspective and wonder about all the stuff that was going on while I was worrying about friends, and later about boys.

Susan Taylor Brown has tackled the angst of a girl in a dysfunctional family in her book, Hugging the Rock. Rachel watches her mom pack the car to go away. She’s heartbroken by the idea, the reality of her mother leaving her. What’s more, her mom is leaving her alone with her father, who has never had much to say to Rachel. Now trapped together and miserable, they must each find a way to regroup and recover. What makes it even harder for both of them is their own awareness of the mother’s troubles. Rachel has known for years that her mom needs her medicine to be close to normal, and sometimes even the medicine doesn’t work. Dad has his own secrets and pain he’s been hiding, but in the end it all needs to come to the light.

The book is told in verse form, which — don’t argue with me here — qualifies its inclusion in Poetry Friday. It will have to count, because after carrying this book around for two weeks to make time to read it and then to write about it, I’ve misplaced it in this disaster of a house. You’ll have to trust me that the poems are lovely and moving.

And continuing with the Five Interesting/Little-Known Things About You Meme, I tag the author at Susan Writes.