false 53860 8 The cynical view of Kaye Gibbons's <i>The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster</i> would be that the Poor Little Match Girl has morphed into Cinderella. <i>Ellen Foster</i>, a book anointed by Oprah's Book Club®, was the tale of young Ellen, daughter of a neurasthenic twit of a mother and a drunken abusive father, who was tossed out of her wicked aunt's home on Christmas Day (Shades of Dickens!). Plucky Ellen fetcheed up at the doorstep of her chosen foster mother and life settled down. <p> This book begins with a too cute, aggressively innocent letter to Derek Bok, President of Harvard University, asking for early admission. Now that Ellen is 15, she believes that she is ready for a larger world, a better education and a different life. That pursuit becomes an incidental subtext to ongoing events. The next two-thirds of the book feels experimental, with a jumpy, jerky style, information left out, information left in that goes nowhere--not easy reading. Then, Gibbons takes control of her story and turns everything upside down, in Ellen's favor. <p> There are some priceless exchanges in the book. Regarding an insight that comes to one for the first time: "It didn't matter if a thousand scholars studied how Madame Bovary probably wouldn't have had to rot from the inside if she'd read better books in her girlhood, if the idea strikes you in Baltimore in a room full of people who say they already know, my theory is it's still your personal view." And this, when she is annoying her friend, Stuart: "Stuart, I said, I never know what to do when you decide to let me in on an argument you've been having for us." <p> So, what does all of this add up to? A good, not great, sequel to the quite good <i>Ellen Foster</i> that is only an adjective away from mawkishness and sentimentality. If we adopt the aforementioned cynical view, the story becomes a treacly fable where the good prevail--and even get rich. A more generous view is that Ellen has suffered enough and it's her turn. Read it and take your pick. <I>--Valerie Ryan</I> 858657 2005 The Life All Around Me By Ellen Foster total:390|5:45|4:79|3:114|2:84|1:68| 390 1119 586 73 2 2 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Sep 29 04:20:38 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 29 04:21:46 -0700 2007 TITLE/AUTHOR: THE LIFE ALL AROUND ME BY ELLEN FOSTER by Kaye Gibbons
RATING: 2/D
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Fiction, 2005, 218 pgs
CHARACTERS: Ellen Foster, 15 yrs old
TIME/PLACE: 1975,small town in NC
COMMENTS: Very disappointing, I have loved some of Gibbons...more...]]> 1 3 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 06 21:47:37 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 06 21:50:31 -0800 2007
This book came to me through another bookcrosser and I felt compelled to finish it. It was short. If it had not been short, I would have given up on it early.

I guess my main problem was the writing style. I couldn't connect...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 13:20:17 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 13:26:02 -0700 2009 Ellen Foster. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, when a local theater group did a dramatization of it, I nearly didn't go, even though we had season tickets, because I didn't want it to be ruined for me. Fortunately, it was extremely well done, and when I t...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:38:33 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:38:33 -0800 2009 Critics were thrilled to see Ellen once again__the precocious darling, the Southern Holden Caulfield, and the female Huck Finn of Ellen Foster. But is she the same gal who captivated readers nearly 20 years ago? Reviewers disagreed. In this sequel, set against the backdrop of Vietnam and Watergate, ...

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Long, unstructured sentences going round and round which leads nowhere. Goodness! Maybe it is a sign of a mental illness coming on?

Definitely not to be read again! ]]> 1 0 false false Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 13:28:34 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 08:04:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Dec 01 11:53:57 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 01 11:55:34 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Tue Nov 17 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 14:56:14 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 14:57:41 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Tue May 12 16:04:01 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 16:05:57 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 19:32:56 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 19:35:00 -0700 2009 1 1 0 false false Thu Jul 16 08:05:36 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 05:29:48 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun Sep 27 22:14:51 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 22:16:04 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/1?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/3?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/2?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/4?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/5?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/6?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/7?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/9?book_id=7041635 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/10?book_id=7041635