That Just Happened!

Baker, Tiffany.  The Little Giant of Aberdeen County.  Hachette Book Group. (2009).

When Truly Plaice’s mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how recordbreakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of femine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated–Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.

When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly’s brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling–the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques–hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan’s family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly’s reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Publishers Web Site

As you may remember, I won this book in a giveaway hosted by Darlene @ Peeking Between the Pages (Thanks, Darlene!).  I was so excited to receive it in the mail (because I love  getting mail!) and I emailed Darlene right away to tell her I had the book in my hot little hands and it was next on my TBR list.  Well, that was true, but it has just taken me a while to post my review, so here we go.

I really, thoroughly, truly enjoyed this book.  I thought it was so well written and it definitely pulled at my heartstrings (the two that are left, that is).  Truly is so misunderstood due to her size, but she has a wealth of feelings that lay just under the surface.  We see them start to break through when she starts dabbling with “witchcraft” and it starts to affect the people in her town.  The Reader really sees Truly walk on a path of self-discovery, but the path has some surprising twists and turns.  I like how Truly is not perfect.  She has flaws and makes mistakes, but she loves dearly, which makes her so relateable.  Although she was ostracized from society, this is not a story about an underdog.  For the most part Truly is very accepting of the way things are and does not try to change until she moves in with Bob Bob.  There is no spectacular, magical ending where all her troubles go away and she just loses the weight and is as pretty as her sister.  Truly is how she is and that won’t change, but the way she feels about it does.

Themes in this book were family, love, and self-discovery. 

I would say this is a Must Read.