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Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:Critics and readers everywhere stood up and took notice when Laura Moriarty's captivating debut novel hit the stores in June '03. Janet Maslin of the New York Times praised The Center of Everything as "warm" and "beguiling." USA Today compared the scrappy yet tender-hearted Evelyn Bucknow to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. It garnered extensive national attention; from Entertainment Weekly to the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle, the press raved about the wisdom and poignancy of Moriarty's writing. The Book-of-the-Month Club snatched it up as a Main Selection, as did the Literary Guild. It was a USA Today Summer Reading Pick, a BookSense Top 10 Pick, and a BN.com book club feature title. And still, months after The Center of Everything's original publication date, reviews and features of the book continue to run nationwide.… (more)
Not much plot but great characters. The book is set in the early to mid eighties and the narrator is a poor, nerdy, smart girl in small town Kansas. I was the same age as the narrator at that time and I think the author did a great job of bringing that era to life again for me. The book is a quick read -- I finished it in about 2 days. ( )
This is a sweet coming-of-age story narrated by Evelyn Bucknow who is on the cusp of adolescence when the story begins, and ready for college by the end. She lives in Kerrville, KS ("the middle of nowhere, but the center of everything", "what everything else spirals out from") in a cheap, roadside apartment complex (Treeline Colonies) with her single mother, Tina. It is the Reagan era -- at least he is running for President and so the 80s time-frame was quite familiar. Evelyn is just becoming aware of the facts of life when her mother gets pregnant during an affair with her boss, which simultaneously ruins her job, her health and her relationship with Evelyn. Tina is already estranged from her family because she was not married to Evelyn's father who has never been in the picture. Only her grandmother, Eileen maintains contact with them and she saves Evelyn in more ways than one. While their relationship is not idyllic, she genuinely cares for her granddaughter (and daughter) and helps them financially, and while Tina is bedridden in her pregnancy, takes Evelyn to her church (Covenant of the Second Ark) to be saved. Her perception of God is touching: "I picture God sitting in front of a computer with blinking lights, putting on headphones when voice comes in like a radio frequency from far away. He turns dials, adjusts the headphones watching words flash on a screen." Evelyn is eager for a place to belong and this suits her for awhile, until her world gets more complicated as she gets older and her favorite science teacher is on the hotseat for teaching evolution. Evelyn questions everything, which leads to her growth. She also is walking through the minefield of friendships and relationships -- her best friend Deena and her crush Travis who also live at Treeline Colonies get together, making for an awkward threesome, but the only friends Evelyn has. She is smart and teachers encourage her to work hard and take advantage of opportunities. She in turn encourages Travis to do the same, but Deena is beautiful and lazy and not very good at school. You can guess where this is headed. When she ends up pregnant and they leave high school to get married the whole dynamic changes. "It's biology after all, pushing us into each other, pushing us around.... I think of dead moths inside a porch light, lemmings jumping to their deaths." Meanwhile, Tina gives birth to a premature baby boy, Samuel, who is dismissed as retarded (being the 80s) and she struggles to get services and to get through to her son. She and Evelyn repair their relationship and come to a steady peace. This is all a lot to juggle, but the plot is united well through Evelyn's self-discovery, growth and understanding of her life and her determination to make something of it. Good but not great. ( )
Das Leben ist unberechenbar mit einer Mutter, die nie eines ihrer Versprechen hält - das musste Evelyn früh lernen. Doch an wen kann sich eine hochbegabte Zehnjährige aus der Provinz wenden, die ihren Vater nie kennengelernt hat und deren Mutter jeden Tag zu einer neuen Herausforderung werden lässt? Laura Moriarty erzählt uns in mitreißender Weise von einer ungewöhnlichen Mutter-Tochter-Beziehung - und sie zeigt uns, wie wichtig es ist, den eigenen Weg im Leben zu finden.
We abandon the Volkswagen, leave it right there on the side of the road, dead and unburied.
I've seen my mother and Eileen look at each other like this, eyes flat, mouths unmoving, a long stare that looks like hate but could be something else, and nothing you want to get in between.
She stood very still, her arms crossed, her eyes trained on the back of Mrs. Carmichael's head as if just by looking at it, she could make it explode.
I know you're not supposed to be glad when other people get sick, but I have been sick of Traci for a long time. And it's not like you can make someone sick just by wishing it. Eileen says you can make sick people better by praying for them. But I don't know if it works the other way.
It's important, what's happening, the beginning of something. It's the way stories start. Someone is blessed, picked out as special by someone who can tell, their luckiness planted deep inside them, sure as a seed.
Mrs. Rowley is so thin and bony looking that sometimes I think just a very loud sound could make her shatter, all her bones splintering up like a cracked vase, then falling to the ground.
And Jesus, I understand, is nicer than God, a little less likely to kill you if you do something wrong.
Really, it's not important if you do bad things or good things. Some people are just blessed, and some aren't.
It's too much of a coincidence, to see a sign like that in the sky, just as I was asking for what I want the most. It was over before I knew what I was seeing, but now I know that, again, I've been blessed, quick as a wind from above.
They look at each other again and smile. I look out the window, at the snow coming down. I don't want to go. I don't want to go drive around in Ed's van. I want to lie down on the highway and let a truck run over me.
She is trying to be nice. But when it comes to people liking each other, being nice has nothing to do with it. Despite her good intentions, this is the way things work. This is just science here, biology at work. Even if I say no, eventually it will make no difference.
Dr. Queen has black hair with a tight permanent wave and a gray streak right down the middle, and it does not look like she has her hair cut so much as clipped, the way you would clip a hedge.
She does not have to clap her hands to get our attention because just her voice is like hands clapping.
It is just a small thing, him feeding himself, just a little something he has learned, something she has taught him. But if she could teach him this, then there is no telling what else is there, wrapped up inside him like a present, and outside of him as well.
Eileen makes a face like the kind you might make if you accidentally drank soured milk, or found a dead mouse behind the refrigerator.
No one says anything. The truth of it, what this really means, starts to settle in slowly, moving into us through our open mouths, seeping in through our eyes when we look at the empty desks.
"Why not?" she asks. "I don't want to bother you." "Oh, honey," she says, laughing now. "It's a little late for that."
His face is still wet from the rain, so it is difficult to tell whether or not he is crying.
I think of Travis now as a silver ball in a pinball machine, rolling in whatever direction he's pushed.
"Someone needs to give the pope thirteen babies. Just for a week or so. See how he likes no birth control then."
It seems strange to me that Deena's body can somehow suddenly produce food for him. It's like a magic trick, a secret talent she has always had that I didn't know about, like juggling or playing the violin.
I feel suddenly large and awkward, like an adult ducking into a playhouse, too big to sit in the play chairs without breaking them.
It's like swimming underwater, this whole year. I just close my eyes, hold my breath, and keep kicking.
"Well it's from your grandfather, really," Eileen says. "He's the one who made this all possible, God rest his soul." She looks up at the ceiling as if he is really up there, floating around like smoke. My mother nods solemnly, but as soon as Eileen turns away, she catches my eye, and raises both of her middle fingers toward the ceiling like they can fire bullets.
There is a chance, I realize, that Travis still does not understand my heart at all, that I am, and have always been, in this alone.
Maybe he didn't get to choose at all. It could be that the decision was made for him, the first time he saw her. It's biology, after all, pushing us into each other, pushing us around. Sitting here, looking at him, I can understand better than anyone how you can be pulled toward someone even when you don't want to be, just because of the way his voice sounds, the way his skin is stretched across the bones of his face. I think of dead moths inside of a porch lamp, lemmings jumping to their deaths.
My mother knocks twice on my door. "Come in," I say. Finally. I have trained her.
"I said I'd do it. Jeez." I try to look annoyed, but really, I like how I have surprised her. I have startled her, just by being nice.
It's beautiful to look at, the clouds rolling into one another, lightning crackling on the horizon.
Times like this especially, I hate to think that the Earth is just a rock spinning in space, and that if it ever stopped or even slowed down, that would be the end for everybody. The clouds, the cars, even buildings would go flying, burning up or flying out into nothing at all.
Last words
After a while, I feel the first drops of rain, cool and soft on my face. Already the clouds are moving toward us, spreading out across the entire sky, our shadows on the concrete disappearing.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:Critics and readers everywhere stood up and took notice when Laura Moriarty's captivating debut novel hit the stores in June '03. Janet Maslin of the New York Times praised The Center of Everything as "warm" and "beguiling." USA Today compared the scrappy yet tender-hearted Evelyn Bucknow to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. It garnered extensive national attention; from Entertainment Weekly to the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle, the press raved about the wisdom and poignancy of Moriarty's writing. The Book-of-the-Month Club snatched it up as a Main Selection, as did the Literary Guild. It was a USA Today Summer Reading Pick, a BookSense Top 10 Pick, and a BN.com book club feature title. And still, months after The Center of Everything's original publication date, reviews and features of the book continue to run nationwide.
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Set in Kerrivlle, Kansas, The Center of Everything is told by Evelyn Bucknow, and endearing character with a wholly refreshing way of looking at the world. Living with her single mother in a small apartment, Evelyn Bucknow is a young girl wincing her way through adolescence. With a voice that is as charming as it is recognizable, Evelyn immerses the reader in the dramas of an entire community. The people of Kerrville, stuck at once in the middle of nowhere but also at the center of everything, are the source from which Moriarty draws on universal dilemmas of love and belief to render a story that grows in emotional intensity until it lifts the reader to heights achieved only by the finest of fiction. (0-7868-8845-8)
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