Buy the book!!!
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Ruth-Oprahs-Club/dp/0385265700/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366911893&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Book+of+Ruth
This was a different kind of book. Definitely a mark on the literary totem pole. To get into the head of s someone whose life is hard. She doesn't have a break in life...and she can't seem to get one...she believes all the lies May, (her mother), told her over the years...she has abused her in every way possible controlling her life, where she lives, where she works, what she eats, where her money goes, just telling her she's too stupid to deal on her own. Ruth marries someone who is developmentally delayed
In reality, Ruth could have been someone altogther different. She's a good mother, a good wife, a good worker, she works her way up to spotter while May stays in the position she held long before Ruth came to work. But May has to beat other people down to keep them with her, to make sure they don't leave her because her happiness left her by way of death long before her kids came along. Her Son, Ruth's brother, left the family with his smarts aand wanted nothing more to do with them. May tries hard to bring him back...she wants to live through her son and she does...she brags about the son who left her...doesn't speak to her and wants nothing to do with her but is just awful to the child who treats her fabulously and hasn't left her and most likely won't.
Years of abuse...well, let's just say it's not good and if you are a simpleton like Ruth's husband who also moves in with May, you won't be able to handle years of verbal abuse. And between having the child and growing up and realizing that May is holding them back, their decision to move out on their own...May decides to step things up. Instead of saying...no, please don't leave me, I'm scared to be alone...she says, you won't leave and gets nastier. Everyone has their breaking point. Ruth and Ruby both found theirs that day.
Ruth now has to learn to live without May, she has to learn to live for herself...and her kids. She has to learn to pick up the pieces and not fall back into the same pattern with her Aunt...which she thinks will happen...although her Aunt is a different person completely...but she feels she needs to escape on her own...and maybe she will now that she's out from under May's thumb. She also starts at the beginning...hating everyone that comes near her, driving them all away...including the Reverend's messages from God. OF course she analyzes scriptures and messages from the Rev constantly...so she is still holding onto the hope that there is someone/something out there to help her and Justy...and a heaven for May.
I liked the way this book was written. It's very heavy...you feel the struggle of life...you feel the unhappiness like a wet blanket over Ruth's life even when she's out having fun with her friend Daisy or out for the day with Ruby. Her mother hangs over her head all the time no matter how nice of a day or week she has. I like how the author's main story is the unhappiness and not the crime/happening which brought the story to a climax and caused Ruth to start again at the beginning. I really liked that you saw how unhappiness can fester...and how abuse can go so much further than just physical and how you cannot just sit and hope that things will change. Action has to be taken for change to happen and change can be scary enough to deter change.
A heavy story, I'm glad I read it...but one I will never reread again.
I give the Book of Ruth three stars...but they are VERY heavy stars indeed.
Happy Reading!
