Book Review: Between, Georgia

September 2, 2007

I was thinking this would be a sweet and sappy break after reading the extremely intense The Book Thief. It wasn't nearly as sweet and sappy as I assumed it would be; as a matter of fact, there wasn't much of either in this book by Joshilyn Jackson. The story is a familiar one--a Hatfield and McCoy battle in a small southern town. But the characters were terribly compelling. Nonny, the narrator, is more than just living in Between, Georgia. She is also in-between two feuding families: the Crabtrees (her biological family) and the Fretts (her adopted family). To add more conflict to the story, her adopted mother is blind and deaf, and her two aunts are quirky enough to merit being characters in southern literature. Much of the novel revolves around Nonny and her many relationships (familial, romantic, and internally), but the story of her mother and her aunts is wonderful. I can't say I'd rush out and tell my friends, "You must read this novel!" but it was a good filler between other novels.