This month's book club genre was 'published the year you were born'. It was hard for me to search because googling "published in 1980" mostly came up with results for "published in 1980s" which was not helpful. Not even my superstar librarian tricks solved that problem. In the end I narrowed it down to two. The first was Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates, a gothic mansion family generational novel that sounded interesting enough but ended up being just as many pages as those Game of Thrones books I don't have time to finish, so that was out. The only other book that sounded remotely interesting was by the Island of the Blue Dolphins author - and I loved that book! So, I figured, how bad could it be?
April 2015: Published the Year You Were Born
Sarah Bishop
By Scott O'Dell
1980
192 pages
It's the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Sarah Bishop's father is a royalist (pro British), and her brother a patriot (free America!). Her brother enlists and dies. Her father dies when patriot assholes burn down their house. She works in a pub for awhile, then gets into trouble with a lying British Captain. This part of the book was depressing.
Running from the law, the only thing for Sarah to do is enter the wild. She finds a cave and a cute albino bat. She procures food and fixes up the cave as home. A pair of Native Americans help her during their travels through Sarah's bit of the wild. This part was interesting. I wish it ended here.
But then Sarah get's convinced to go to a Quaker meeting in town and they throw her in jail for being a witch. Then she get's freed and goes back to her cave. This part was stupid and the ending was dumb.
It took me a couple hours to read this book, so it wasn't a complete waste of time, but I didn't really enjoy reading it. Would I have enjoyed it if I was in junior high as the target audience? Maybe, Island of the Blue Dolphins is pretty depressing too. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone though. There's got to be better YA books out there. Throw this in the waste of time pile.
April 2015: Published the Year You Were Born
Sarah Bishop
By Scott O'Dell
1980
192 pages
It's the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Sarah Bishop's father is a royalist (pro British), and her brother a patriot (free America!). Her brother enlists and dies. Her father dies when patriot assholes burn down their house. She works in a pub for awhile, then gets into trouble with a lying British Captain. This part of the book was depressing.
Running from the law, the only thing for Sarah to do is enter the wild. She finds a cave and a cute albino bat. She procures food and fixes up the cave as home. A pair of Native Americans help her during their travels through Sarah's bit of the wild. This part was interesting. I wish it ended here.
But then Sarah get's convinced to go to a Quaker meeting in town and they throw her in jail for being a witch. Then she get's freed and goes back to her cave. This part was stupid and the ending was dumb.
It took me a couple hours to read this book, so it wasn't a complete waste of time, but I didn't really enjoy reading it. Would I have enjoyed it if I was in junior high as the target audience? Maybe, Island of the Blue Dolphins is pretty depressing too. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone though. There's got to be better YA books out there. Throw this in the waste of time pile.
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