Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin

The Story: What is it with me and kidnapping/kids in peril  books? I am all about them right now.

This one is about a little girl, Katie, who gets snatched from her small town on the way to the library.  As the book unfolds, there are a lot of different characters that come out of the woodwork.  Notably, her math tutor, who at first comes off as a sweet guy who has fallen on bad luck but is then revealed to be more and more of a pervert.  There’s also Clare, an older lady who has recently remarried after being widowed.  Her new husband, Raymond R., is kind of a creeper, but again- is made out to be a nice guy.

Early in the story, Katie goes missing and the rest of the book is tacked together from different points of view (all the aforementioned characters, along with members of Katie’s family) and different times- some past, some present, and some written from the future looking back.  Little by little more is revealed that make different characters seem suspicious and lay out possible scenarios.

The question of  who is “guilty” is answered at the end of the book, but questions of responsibility leave this book with a bit of lingering tension.  Because the book is written from so many points of view, the reader gets to get into a lot of different heads who are all posing their own “what if I had…” questions.

What I Thought: I liked this one.  I didn’t love it- it didn’t move me enough for that- but I did like it.

What did it for me, I think, was the shifting points of view.  This isn’t anything new. I’ve read that before 1,000 times.  However, this time the actual voices changed.  It was actually like seeing the story through 5 or  6 different perspectives and that made the story that much more real for me.

The other thing that I really enjoyed was the actual town that the characters lived in.  It was a small town in Indiana, and for me it was like a character in and of itself.  I totally got it.  I felt like I was there.  The little class-wars, the nice but creepy guys, being a little girl with her friend just killing hours on the back porch.  Maybe that is what got me about this book. I’ve been a little girl riding my bike barefoot to return books to the library.  I could just see myself in this setting and it made the book come alive.

The fact that this book was nominated for the Pulitzer, however, is kind of beyond what I can grasp.  It was good and all… but Pulitzer nominated good? Probably not. Eh.

Conclusion: I need to read a cheerier book where all the kids are safe and happy.