Kay Sloan

This is the coming of age story of a southern girl in the late 1960s. Her mother—a bit of a radical for her time and place—is murdered and mystery surrounds the perpetrator for most of the book, but this is definitely not a who done it.

The book details the life of its narrator Jubilee Starling and her sister Charlene as they enter adolescence and come out the other side. Jubilee inherits her mother's red Chey pick-up truck which has a Hula girl stuck to the dashboard that her mother always called 'The Patron Saint of Red Chevys'. Jubilee leaves behind her family and the gossip-mongering small town where they live to go to school in Berkeley. There she learns that there is no escaping who you are and that people are the same no matter where you go. The mystery of her mother’s death is solved. In the end, Jubilee discovers that home is where your people are even, or maybe especially, if that turns out to be the South.

This book didn’t really resonate for me. I’ve been thinking and thinking about why that is, but I think that the truth is I’ve really enjoyed some great YA novels lately and preferred them to this adult book for telling the tale of an adolescent reaching maturity. It might fare better for someone who grew up in the same time and place.… (altro)