March is winding down and so is the Take Control of Your TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Kimba.
Another book from my TBR pile is Y by Marjorie Celona. Here’s a pic of Bailey checking it out.
I didn’t know what to make of y (lower case) upon reading the first few pages. The story darkly tells the story of a baby left outside of a YMCA somewhere in Canada. This poor, helpless baby has strange and traumatic ordeals in several foster homes until she is finally adopted by a single mother. Interwoven is the story of this baby’s mother, who’s life is also traumatic, and why she has come to deliver and abandon this newborn at the doorstep of the Y.
The reader can almost predict the drug abuse and toxic relationships that both characters encounter during their lives. What the reader cannot predict is how these young women survive. To be sure, the baby, now named Shannon, is very much loved by her latest adopted mother, Miranda. Miranda gives Shannon all the love and support that she can to help the child thrive. Shannon, however, is broken and knows it, not sure how to fit into the world. Thanks to a few helpful people, Shannon decides to investigate her past and see if she can find her parents.
I loved learning about life and the scenery of Vancouver. The author carefully flavors the people in Shannon’s life: the broken, the sick, the tired, the drug addicts, the street people, and the First Nation people. I especially liked that the First Nation characters were not singled out as right or wrong, they were simply people living in the world, no different than the Chinese take out or the guy playing drums at the park. What I especially love about the novel is that Celona made sure that even though none of these people were perfect, in fact, most were struggling in some way, there was a sensitivity to them toward Shannon that is indescribable.
Y is not an easy book to read. But it is thoroughly worth sticking with to see what this young and very strange looking heroine makes of herself.
I give the book 4 paws for lots of multi ethnic characterization.
I still have 5 more days left of March! How many more books can I get cleared off of my TBR pile??