Deborah E. Kennedy

i'm not sure the wrap-up of this worked for me much, and i'm not entirely sure this wasn't trying to be more literary than it needed to be. still, there's something to this story of a mother trying to be good (and often failing) for her daughter. (well, it's about more than that, but that's theme i liked best, that i thought worked best.)

Daisy, a 5-year-old wheelchair-bound girl in a small Midwestern town, goes missing one day. This story focuses on the people in her life who know and love her, as the mystery around her disappearance deepens and is complicated by the stories in the book.

This is a character-driven, rather than plot-focused book, with Daisy's disappearance taking a (way back) back seat to the story of the lives of the people in Colliersville, Indiana. Those characters include a boy with Asperger's with no show more bowel control; a bus driver who is a little slow but has self-improvement aspirations; a community of illegal aliens working for peanuts and living in a cockroach-infested paint-peeling apartment complex owned by their employer/slum landlord; a high schooler whose mother skipped town and her gun-toting militia-man father and his redneck best friend; a cross-dressing teen who is happiest singing show tunes as he styles the hair of the old ladies in town; his depressive addict mother in the hospital about to be dumped by her no-good husband; two best friends, with dead-end jobs and cheating boyfriends; an overweight spiritual medium who can talk to animals; a young born-again Christian whose only wish is to befriend the loner bus driver; etc, etc.

These are some of the cast of characters we meet. Their stories are one depressing history after another. These are losers, to a one, and as a result, the book makes for a very depressing read. There is not one happy person in this town, and not one happy event. Not one. This kind of negativity -- I just don't get it. What is the author trying to prove here? That life sucks? That life in Indiana sucks? That we're all just living in our own private hells? It was hard to find redemption here, in the lives of the characters, and in the book itself.

The mystery of what happens to Daisy becomes only a backdrop to the author's real intent here, to show us this sad, depressing town and its sad, depressing inhabitants. The revelation of what happens to Daisy occurs as an afterthought.

Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy. show less

The book dropped a star for the last chapters. First because the ending is cheesy and American, even if it is creative and touching. Second, because this cool collection of short stories highlighting the foibles and complications of so many of the townspeople which are tied together by the mystery of Daisy's disappearance come to nothing. There is no sudden ah-ha! moment of clues coming together or profound links between the stories, there is just a lot of messed up people living in a tiny show more town that gets hit by a destructive tornado in the end, and people keep in living. The build-up of a great story plateaus too early and without a climax.
Not horrible, but not up to its potential. show less

Cleverly done, especially for a first attempt.the story shifts from one point to f view to another throughout, reminding me of Wilkie Collins Moonstone. Collins made it clear who was narrating each section, here, you have to pay attention. The author has immense sympathy, the bullies and bigots and even the child killers are humanized. The
AST chapter was especially sweet, though some may think it too much