The Silver Star

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writer of bestsellers, The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses, has penned a coming-of-age book of fiction about two sisters, 12 year old, precocious, say it like she means it Bean and 15 year old, quite brilliant Liz who are used to being on their own in Cali as their mom, Charlotte, leaves them alone for days while she searches for musical stardom. But when the police start snooping around, the girls hop a unsettling Greyhound ride to visit an unknown eccentric uncle living in a once booming mill town in Virginia. Liz and Bean start to fit in and adjust to the sleepy town's ways but desegregation, bullying, and even worse await the girls, who have had to grow up too fast. Young Bean, who was once sheltered by Liz, now will need to be the protector.

I fell in love with Bean, who tries so hard to make everything right and who gets so angry with her mother for leaving them to fend for themselves. Her sense of black and white honesty and justice is perhaps just what we need...



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