Book Reviews

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I typically don't read Romance/Life Experience-type novels. But this book is published by Pleasant Word (the company I trusted with my first novel), so I decided to check it out. I am glad I did. This novel started out a little slow, sometimes being too repetitive concerning the main-character's (Frances) alcoholic father (Guy). That soon changed. Around page 74 of this 214 page novel, I was whisked away by a brilliant, flowing story of a Southern girl encountering trials and tribulations which she thought might break her (I was beginning to think that too).

The authors, Frances Terrell Shannon & Ann Shannon Jenkins, are to be commended for their ability to make this reader teary eyed one minute, and laughing out loud the next; a cow killed by a misguided airplane, a mother succumbing to ALS, a young son declaring dirt clogs Indian arrowheads, a badly scalded child, and a few big, bluish crabs trying to escape a scalding of their own, are but just a few of the happenings in this well-crafted gift to the literary world.

We all have stories to tell, and as it says on the back of the book, "Trolley Girl beckons the reader to look to their family stories to better understand themselves." A very worthwhile statement. How many people watch soap operas and take mental notes on the direction each actor is heading? Why aren't we that observant with the people close to us; in the real world?

Trolley Girl is a good read. But more than that, it is an eye-opener; a looking-glass into the role each of us plays in this thing called life. We can let our "little demons" seize our desire to love those around us, or we can make a conscious effort to rise above the hopelessness by believing in the only real hope. I'll leave it at that. :-)

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