Candy, Sweet & Sour

by Bobbi Faulkner

A coming-of-age story of a young girl in the opiate-south. Candy navigates growing up in a situation that is less than ideal with humor and spunk. She is hilarious in her observations, smart, and completely irrepressible. Her "Candy-isms" are real and brutally honest! This book explores the boundaries of a mother's unconditional love, and delves into themes of the importance of family and relationships above all else in the South, especially for those living in poverty. Set in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina, themes of domestic violence, drug abuse, drug addiction, criminal activity, and coming of age are developed as Candy resiliently makes it through all of the traumas life throws at her with an often sardonic sense of humor. Even though this is not the most functional family in the world, they ARE a family that you could drag yourself to when you've been shot in the butt, and they'd help you, no questions asked.

218 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 5, 2021

Reviews

[William Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bobbi Faulkner’s Candy is an eleven-year- old blonde and pretty trailer park misfit with a caustic mouth and tender heart. She tells her story in the southern vernacular of her hillbilly clan, and she’s an arresting narrator, as candid and profane and sometimes as touching as Holden Caulfield. I thought at times the book’s main plot wasn’t going anywhere, then realized the plot was less a plot than it was an in-depth portrait of an extended family of case hardened square pegs. A family derailed by drugs, in and out of jail, evasive of school, the bane of local law enforcement and social services, but a regular entertainment contributor to the scandal page of their city newspaper. Candy repeats the book’s theme many times during her digressive but involving patter, “In the end, family’s all you got.” And there is her story: the bumpy survival of her struggling clan against all odds and probabilities, sticking together through whatever comes, able through unity merely to persist, their laudable victory over fate. A fast and fun read.

[Gill Mather · Rating 3 out of 5]

No Story Line

I liked this book to begin with. It seemed quirky and unusual and it brilliantly draws the reader into the brain and the world of a badly-educated, eleven-year-old girl growing up in a poor, dysfunctional Southern US family. There’s drugs, crime, jail on the part of other members of her family, as well as homelessness and she’s excluded from school for doing something that was someone else’s idea – rather unfair. The feeling that family is important is a factor in the novel throughout.

So essentially, the novel has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, there’s no storyline as such and the novel would benefit from a core plot. Without any plot, the text reads rather like a statement for court proceedings or for some other reason or perhaps a memoir. When I realised there wasn’t going to be any story, I rather lost interest as one catastrophic event followed another and it was a struggle to read to the end.

The book rather reminded me of the UK novel ‘What They Do In The Dark’ by Amanda Coe. It’s written partly from the POV of a poor girl from a dysfunctional family, but it has a definite storyline and the added interest that a film crew comes to the girl’s school. It’s interspersed with sections/chapters from the points of view of others, thereby giving it more breadth and possibilities than the introspections of a single person.

Perhaps ‘Candy Sweet & Sour’ could borrow some of the techniques and invent a story to justify itself.

[Marie Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bittersweet

Candy, Sweet & Sour made me laugh and made me sad. I got caught up in her story from page one. Will we find out more about her hopes and dreams?

[A. Claire Everward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this is a book that needs to be in every classroom. I don’t usually read coming of age but this one was something I wish I had read growing up. There are so many emotions in this book. You laugh, you cry, you get angry and you get frustrated. The characters and the story are truly amazing. Candy is relatable. The way she deals with different matters is, well, full of charm. Her family is wild and special but it’s hers. Her life - I think we can all relate with something. The writing is incredible and so is the point of view. Child or adult -read it.

[K. Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candy, Too - Chapter 1: “She had already moved out …” could be “Dreama Mae had already moved out …”

[Zita Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially, I was a little hesitant about this book. Right from the beginning, we are bombarded with every stereotype associated with the “hillbilly” class of life, from roaches climbing out of jars of baby formula…uggh, to joblessness, prison, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, abuse, and a complete lack of respect for legal and moral authority.

But the eleven-year-old narrator, Candy, won me over completely. A brilliant spark of light in the midst of all the chaos, she is unapologetically outspoken and hilarious, poking fun at her family and herself with love and acceptance, sometimes with an insight beyond her years. Through Candy’s narration, we see the love that holds this family together through all the adversity. We see the vulnerability beneath the bravado, and see that they are what they are because of their circumstances, a lack of opportunity and education. The brashness and cockiness are attempts to make themselves feel better in a world that ostracizes them.

We also see an awareness that things could be different as Candy ends with “Am I Mama’s second chance? Can I make it out of this place…?” You go, girl.

I found the language a little inconsistent. Most of the time characteristic of this walk of life, lacking in grammar and finesse, now and then it transformed into an educated, upper class, sometimes downright poetic lingo. I found myself wondering if this was intentional or not. Not sure where a girl who shunned school and was surrounded by lewdness would learn to express herself like that.

In the end, the message I got from the book was that it’s easy to judge when we are not in their shoes. While entertaining us, the author also gives us an in-depth look at a different culture, revealing the humanity beneath, which ties them to all of us.