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A Girl Could Stand Up
When six-year-old Elray reaches up to touch the moon in the Tunnel of Love, she narrowly escapes a freak electric current that claims the lives of both her parents. Suddenly orphaned, she is left stunned and mute, until two loving but undomesticated uncles step in.
Cross-dressing Uncle Ajax insists on being addressed as 'Aunt'; Uncle Harwood is a macho photographer, full of...more
Cross-dressing Uncle Ajax insists on being addressed as 'Aunt'; Uncle Harwood is a macho photographer, full of...more
Paperback
Published
January 3rd 2005
by Black Swan
(first published June 2nd 2003)
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Feb 13, 2012
Cheyenne Blue
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
books-i-wish-i-d-written
I loved this, loved, loved, loved it.
Elray is 6 years old when she reaches up to touch the moon in the tunnel of love and accidentally electrocutes her parents. She goes to live with her Uncle Harwood and her Auntie Ajax (who's technically her Uncle Ajax).
The story fits loosely into Weird-Little-Girl-Growing-Up stories, but it's so much more than that. Elray is a wonderful narrator; quirky, funny, thoughtful, off-beat. The characters are wonderful, a mish-mash of the dysfunctional in all sorts...more
Elray is 6 years old when she reaches up to touch the moon in the tunnel of love and accidentally electrocutes her parents. She goes to live with her Uncle Harwood and her Auntie Ajax (who's technically her Uncle Ajax).
The story fits loosely into Weird-Little-Girl-Growing-Up stories, but it's so much more than that. Elray is a wonderful narrator; quirky, funny, thoughtful, off-beat. The characters are wonderful, a mish-mash of the dysfunctional in all sorts...more
Not a bad book - following a similar quirky feel seen in John Irving and and the William Konsalski - Eddies Bastards books.
Elray is 6 years old when her parents are killed on the tunnel of love.
She then lives with her unkles - one a cross dresser and one a hard drinker and strikes a fairly morbid relationship with a young boy.
The book follows her youth and other characters introduced include an irish solictor who become pregnant by one of the uncles, all of this revealed in a court case called b...more
Elray is 6 years old when her parents are killed on the tunnel of love.
She then lives with her unkles - one a cross dresser and one a hard drinker and strikes a fairly morbid relationship with a young boy.
The book follows her youth and other characters introduced include an irish solictor who become pregnant by one of the uncles, all of this revealed in a court case called b...more
I loved, loved, loved the main character of this quirky coming-of-age novel. Six year old Elray is orphaned and ends up being raised by her mother's brother (who is her cross-dressing aunt Ajax) and her father's brother. This dysfunctional family ends up being very lovable and surprisingly functional even. I enjoyed their family rituals (like "Crawlspace Day") and the constant but relatively harmless drama. I also thought the relationship with her friend Raoul was brilliantly portrayed and full...more
This is one of my favourite books ever, and has been for a long time now.
I fell in love with the characters (Elray and Hansueli being my favourites!) and keep on hinting at my family to read it :).
After reading this book and being drawn by it's quirky and loveable ways I'm still convinced that if I ever have a little girl, it will be an Elray.
I fell in love with the characters (Elray and Hansueli being my favourites!) and keep on hinting at my family to read it :).
After reading this book and being drawn by it's quirky and loveable ways I'm still convinced that if I ever have a little girl, it will be an Elray.
This book was interesting, different. Very original storyline about two uncles who take care of their orphaned niece. One of the uncles is a drag queen. I just couldn't quite get into the storyline, but, it's been years since I read it, and I still remember it.
This one one of the most unique kind of plots I've ever experienced. It's also a sort of coming of age story but everyone in the book is so eccentric that it avoids some of the less interesting parts of adolescence. It was a great read.
This book was a bit different from anything I've read before. Elray is a very unique child. She is very insightful and observant for her age. I loved all the characters in this book, but especially Auntie Ajax. The author's perspective on some difficult life situations actually fall in line with some of mine which is a refreshing change of pace. Glad I picked this one up at the used book sale at my library. :)
Clever fun read!
I liked the story line of this book, but found it surprisingly hard to get through. In the end, though, it's a great story with well-developed characters.
I randomly grabbed this book off of an eye level shelf in the library. I read it and fell in love with the characters. It was a little confusing at first (the Ajax situation), but I'd forgotten to read what it was about on the jacket first :) That was about 3 months ago and I still cannot get the book out of my head. It's definitely one of my all time favorites now.
I just found this book to be very unbelievable. Everything was taken to an extreme, from the names (Elray, Ajax, Harwood...no one had a "normal" name) to the situations that the characters ended up in. I felt like the author wanted this to be a story you could connect with, but she made everything a little too out-there for that to happen.
This book started off strong and I was engaged right away, then it lost it's oomph. I didn't feel like there was a point. The characters were interesting, but a little bit unrealistic.
A very interesting story where it is not hard to fall in love with the main character. As your sympathy grows, your ties to the story strengthens and its hard to put it down.
I absolutely love this book. I fall in love with it every time I read it. It makes me laugh, cry, and lets me reflect on so many points of our day to day lives. It is perfect.
This is a story about loss and rebirth, and about what family really means. A wonderful offbeat story which I recommend to anyone who is looking for an uplifting story.
This is one of my favorite books of all time! The characters are fantastic, it had laugh and cry out loud moments, this coming of age story is like no other.
This was one I just picked up by the title/back cover description... so glad I did... really great book. I love when I find gems
story from a young girl's perspective. humorous. i am drawn to books written in this perspective for some reason!
My coworker loaned me this book. She said this is one of her favorite books of 2007!
A friend sent me an advanced copy of this and it was a lovely surprise. Try it!
A wonderfully quirky story.
view all 4 comments
May 09, 2013
Jenni Garratt
marked it as to-read
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