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Loading... Being Fishkillby Ruth Lehrer
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. When you grow up poor and neglected, it's easy to mistrust, or give up. That's twelve year old Fishkill's reality, but when she is presented with an opportunity to make a friend, it's not only scary, but she can sense something liberating behind the opportunity. This is a gritty, but still beautiful coming of age story. ( )teen/adult fiction (child with absent parents, friendship and complex social dynamics, incidental LGBTQ characters) Carmel Fishkill, named for the highway exit sign she was born near, has been fending for herself her whole life, decides to remake herself at 12 years old and become a person who is tougher than nails and who doesn't cry, registering under her middle name when she enters middle school, where she is able to take food from other kids to prevent herself from going hungry. Normally a book about a 12-going-on-13-year-old girl would be a middlegrade novel, but what Fishkill goes through is pretty intense. Terrific characters and a heartwrenching plot make this one of my favorites for 2017. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This young adult novel is written in a very captivating first person narration of a middle school aged female who was born into an extremely dysfunctional family, trying to simply survive life. A single mother and her daughter, also a classmate of the main character, take the narrator in after her a series of tragic events occur. Unfortunately the tragic events don't stop there, but the story is a great read about the courage and strength of the human spirit. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Received this copy as an Library Thing Early Review copy. I enjoyed it very much. A bit sad and dramatic but still a good read. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Carmel Fishkill was named after the crossroads where she was born in the cab of her grandfather's truck. Her parentage is questionable since both she and her mother are constantly victims of the abusive grandfather (father) with whom they live. Trying to build a new tough image, Carmel decides to go by the name Fishkill. Fishkill befriends the rebellious Duck-Duck, a girl who is always on the look out for trouble. Fishkill, desperate to hide the fact that she has been living on her own since her grandfather died and her mother abandoned her, begins to develop a retlationship with Duck-Duck and her mother Molly and becomes a part of a family she never had. Recommended read. Well-developed characters and well written. Could have ended on a different note though.. no reviews | add a review
AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Young Adult Fiction.
Young Adult Literature.
HTML: Fishkill Carmel fends for herself, with her fists if need be â?? until a thwarted lunch theft introduces her to strange, sunny Duck-Duck, and a chance for a new start. Born in the backseat of a moving car, Carmel Fishkill was unceremoniously pushed into a world that refuses to offer her security, stability, love. At age thirteen-going-on-fifty, she begins to fight back. Carmel Fishkill becomes Fishkill Carmel, who deflects her tormenters with a strong left hook and conceals her secrets from teachers and social workers. But Fishkill's fierce defenses falter once she meets eccentric optimist Duck-Duck Farina, and soon they, along with Duck-Duck's mother, Molly, form a tentative family, even as Fishkill struggles to understand her place in it. This fragile new beginning is threatened by the reappearance of Fishkill's unstable mother â?? and by unfathomable tragedy. Poet Ruth Lehrer's young adult debut is a stunning, revelatory look at what defines and sustains "family." And, just as it does for Fishkill, meeting Duck-Duck Farina and her mother will leave readers forever changed No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumRuth Lehrer's book Being Fishkill was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNone
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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