The Center of Everything -- #21

Author: Laura Moriarty
Rating: 5 stars

10-year-old Evelyn Bucknow lives in the center of Kansas, in the center of the United States, in the center of the world map that hangs on the wall of her 4th grade classroom. Growing up in a cheap apartment next to the highway with her single mother (who is hardly more than a child herself, at times), Evelyn must learn to navigate life and love, birth and death, religion and science, right and wrong, truth and lies...pretty much by herself, and figure out who she really is in the process.

This is a coming of age novel by a first-time writer with an awesome name, (Laura Moriarty. How cool is that?) and it is an incredible debut. Her writing is wonderful-- I could see the scenes-- the people, the places-- in my mind. It was so easy to visualize everything. I love that.

Evelyn is such a fun protagonist. Her internal monologues are great. She is so naive at times, so innocent, so earnestly wanting to do and be good... and so sadly ignorant at other times. She has many influences pulling her every which way, and no solid person to look to who can really help her figure out which way is the right way. Her mother had her in high school and it seems never really grew up. Affairs with married men don't help things. Evelyn's grandmother could be that solid person, but her answer to everything is God and/or the Bible, and Evelyn quickly learns that religion is not all there is to life.

I love how this book goes from Evelyn as a 10-year-old all the way through high school. I love seeing characters and even a place as time passes. I love how I was so frustrated with Evelyn's mom at the beginning of the book, but by the end she had grown and developed, and I was so impressed with some of the things she did. I love the lessons Evelyn learns, and the way she figures things out. There were a few times when it seemed like Evelyn was ignorant of things she surely would have known by that age, but I had to remind myself of just how sheltered her life had been.

One critic on the back of the book likened this novel to an updated version of To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but the first person narration coming from a young girl does remind me of TKAM. (Nothing will ever approach TKAM for me, though, so my differing opinion isn't too surprising.)

Basically, I loved this book and I want to own it. Be warned, there is some language. I'd estimate 5-10 F-words scattered throughout the book. I didn't find it gratuitous at all. It was just plain good.