Thursday, May 24, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Book Review for "Buried" by Robin Merrow MacCready
In addition to book club books and programs, we are going to start talking about other books we have read that are written for children or teens. If you have read them before or pick them up after reading our reviews, please don't hesitate to chime in with your thoughts in the comments section. Without further ado, here is our first book review.
"Buried" by Robin Merrow MacCready. (Young adult fiction novel)
Buried is a dark but moving story about an obsessive-compulsive, honor student, neat-freak named Claude, who lives in contrast to her messy, unpredictable, alcoholic mother in their small trailer on the coast of Maine. When Claude wakes up one morning to her mother gone and the house trashed, she is only a little surprised; it's happened before, but she'd been sober for months and really cleaned herself up recently--for good, this time, or so her mother promised. Claude cannot bring herself to tell her peers at the children-of-alcoholics support group that her mother has fallen off the wagon again, and instead says that she finally agreed to go to rehab. Claude struggles with the mystery of her mother's disappearance, and she becomes more and more obsessed with cleaning and organizing every aspect of her life. As she gets to the point where she can no longer function, her friends and teachers worry about her, but she refuses their help and continues into her spiral rather than admit her codependency and OCD. All the while, it becomes clear that Claude's mother never went to rehab, and furthermore, isn't coming back.
The suspense in this book builds slowly, and as fragments of the mystery fall into place via dreams and flashbacks, I became more engrossed in the story and needed to discover the truth. I felt for the main character because the author does a great job of getting inside her head and making the reader feel what she feels, while still being able to see the situation from the outside. Several times I just wanted to shake the main character by the shoulders and snap her out of her OCD spiral. Seeing small pieces of myself in Claude was a bit eerie, and I think most readers will be able to do the same. Anyone who is even a little particular about things will fully recognize themselves in the book, and begin to reflect on their own compulsions and how they might appear to others.
"Buried" by Robin Merrow MacCready. (Young adult fiction novel)
Buried is a dark but moving story about an obsessive-compulsive, honor student, neat-freak named Claude, who lives in contrast to her messy, unpredictable, alcoholic mother in their small trailer on the coast of Maine. When Claude wakes up one morning to her mother gone and the house trashed, she is only a little surprised; it's happened before, but she'd been sober for months and really cleaned herself up recently--for good, this time, or so her mother promised. Claude cannot bring herself to tell her peers at the children-of-alcoholics support group that her mother has fallen off the wagon again, and instead says that she finally agreed to go to rehab. Claude struggles with the mystery of her mother's disappearance, and she becomes more and more obsessed with cleaning and organizing every aspect of her life. As she gets to the point where she can no longer function, her friends and teachers worry about her, but she refuses their help and continues into her spiral rather than admit her codependency and OCD. All the while, it becomes clear that Claude's mother never went to rehab, and furthermore, isn't coming back.
The suspense in this book builds slowly, and as fragments of the mystery fall into place via dreams and flashbacks, I became more engrossed in the story and needed to discover the truth. I felt for the main character because the author does a great job of getting inside her head and making the reader feel what she feels, while still being able to see the situation from the outside. Several times I just wanted to shake the main character by the shoulders and snap her out of her OCD spiral. Seeing small pieces of myself in Claude was a bit eerie, and I think most readers will be able to do the same. Anyone who is even a little particular about things will fully recognize themselves in the book, and begin to reflect on their own compulsions and how they might appear to others.
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