Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson

Amy   

Note: Lynnie read this book before we started blogging our book reviews but she really enjoyed it!

women's fiction

Nonny, the main character in Between, Georgia, is trying to carry through with a divorce and struggling to keep her birth family of the Crabtrees and her adoptive family of the Fretts at peace.  This is a story of quirky families in small-town Georgia.

The beginning is indelicately graphic so it immediately feels gritty and messy. In fact, the descriptions are so unsavory and the majority of characters seemingly so unlovable that, had I not already read and loved two of Joshilyn Jackson's books, I likely would not have finished this one. I persevered but this is my least favorite of her novels.

The tile is apt. The city is named Between, Nonny is stuck between two families, her life is pulled between two places--home and work, and her job is to translate between two parties--the hearing and the deaf. There are also other characters stuck between the two warring families. As with the other Jackson novels I've read, most of the typical recurring themes are there. Again, there is an artist--this time a dollmaker. Again, there are absent parents. Again, there is a woman trying to live the best way she knows how yet facing struggles. Again, this woman has family members--women of three generations--for whom she cares deeply. Missing from this novel, however, was the humor which was present in the other novels I've read of Jackson's. This novel suffered for its absence. I suppose the craziness of some of the characters is supposed to be the funny part but they just seemed sad and angry to me.

After praising Jackson as my favorite author narrator for the last novel I listened to, I have to say that her characters' voices in this one were so small town southern that I almost couldn't take it. She gave the most annoying characters the strongest, most obnoxious accents and tones. It was torture. I give her a B+ on this one because her accent choices caused me to like the book less than I might otherwise.