What They Say....Millie Bird, seven years old and ever hopeful, always wears red gumboots to match her curly hair. Her struggling mother, grieving the death of Millie’s father, leaves her in the big ladies’ underwear department of a local store and never returns.
Agatha Pantha, eighty-two, has not left her house—or spoken to another human being—since she was widowed seven years ago. She fills the silence by yelling at passersby, watching loud static on TV, and maintaining a strict daily schedule.
Karl the Touch Typist, eighty-seven, once used his fingers to type out love notes on his wife’s skin. Now that she’s gone, he types his words out into the air as he speaks. Karl’s been committed to a nursing home, but in a moment of clarity and joy, he escapes. Now he’s on the lam.
Brought together at a fateful moment, the three embark upon a road trip across Western Australia to find Millie’s mother. Along the way, Karl wants to find out how to be a man again; Agatha just wants everything to go back to how it was.
Together they will discover that old age is not the same as death, that the young can be wise, and that letting yourself feel sad once in a while just might be the key to a happy life.
What I Say....This book reminded me a lot of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. It's a quirky little story about a family in crisis, and the full of wild characters.
Millie is deserted in a department story by her grieving mother. She is a pretty resourceful little girl and manages to stay hidden for a few nights, but during the day she meets Karl, a recent nursing home runaway.
The two of them team up with Agatha, an agoraphobic widow and the this motley crew takes off across Australia to try to reunite Millie with her mom. Along the way, they meet an assortment of characters that either help them or delay them.
The ones that delay them actually give them the greatest gift, because it's the hardships that help them realize that they are still strong, still capable, and still able to care about others.
At times, the story was a little hard to follow, particularly with Agatha's yelling, but you ended up finding yourself invested in the characters, so it was easy to finish.
Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC to read and review.
Current Goodreads rating 3.62
No comments:
Post a Comment