It took me awhile to get thru this book.

It is from a child's perspective, "Bone" is a girl who goes through a lot of trials in life. (Deaths, beatings, rape, losing the love of her mother, it can't get much worse!) The end of the book is when I couldn't put it down!

I have never read a Dorothy Allison book and I have not made up my mind as to if I will read another. ( )

An unsettling tale of life in the rural deep South: of a young, illegitimate girl raised in a tight-knit, loving family whose socio-economic struggles drive them to, and are compounded by, lives of hard drinking and harder fighting. The subject matter—physical and sexual abuse; life on the margins of society; burgeoning childhood sexuality—doesn't make for easy reading, but Allison's prose has a combination of wit, honesty and simplicity that pulls the reader through. Allison perhaps has one or two subtle issues with race, but her dissection of gender in the rural South in the 1960s is superb. Bastard out of Carolina never condescending and always hard-hitting, and that is what perhaps makes the ending—devastating and disturbing in equal measure—at all plausible to the reader. ( )

Touches on some interesting topics: child abuse, lesbians, domestic issues and poverty. Allison really brings this issues out with accuracy and passion. This book is also about forgiveness. This book is an educational insight into these issues. Allison is a great storyteller. ( )

I was flipping through the channels and came across the made-for-tv movie of this book. It was obvious that the movie was pretty far along, so I watched for just a minute and then turned it off. A few days later, a student asked me about the book while I was sitting at the Reference Desk. Not being one to ignore signs as they appear before me, I went and picked up the book from the stacks.

The main character is given the nickname “Bone” and is damned from birth: her mother was single, her father was long gone. She was certified a bastard by the state of Carolina. Anney Boatwright, her mother, fights the stamp on the birth certificate and the stigma that will follow her child. Unable to convince the court, she decides that the way to make her child legitimate is to marry and have her husband adopt Bone. Thus Daddy Glen enters their lives.

This is an absolutely heartbreaking story of abuse and neglect. Abused by Daddy Glen, Bone becomes bitter and hard. She’s nothing but a bastard, nothing but a Boatwright – a family of drunks and criminals. She tries to find solace in religion and books, but can’t escape the horrid reality of home or the thoughts that run through her mind. She has aunts that help to raise her, but never lets them in. The betrayal of her family – unable or unwilling to intervene – is heartbreaking and infuriating.

This is a story of a specific time and place, but somehow Bone’s voice seemed very present. I’m not sorry that I picked this book up. I had an idea of what I was in store for, but I didn’t expect it to affect me quite so much. What is written is powerful. How it is written - the deadpan account from a girl who felt damned and worthless – made it personal. ( )

This book was amazing. I read it in only a few days, once I started I couldn't stop. I loved that the author captured the desire and hatred toward Bone from her stepfather, so often authors only hit one or the other. And the mother turning the other cheek so many times, leaving only to return. This book is such a real look into the abuse of a child, and the turmoil and disturbing feelings that it brings up for everyone involved. ( )