At first, when I began to read The Bean Trees, I had quite low expectations. Barbara Kingsolver is not exaactly an author whose literature enthralls me; science fiction and the occasional fantasy novel are right up my alley. However, I was pleasantly surprised with my reaction toward the short novel. It had a compelling story, for being a dramatic, romantic chick novel, and had enough humor to not bore the fantasy reader.
The story concerns Marietta Greer, a girl from Pittman County, Kentucky. She finally leaves her small town to go west in her early 20s. While on her trip, she changes her name to Taylor. While at a bar in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, an old Indian woman walks up to her car and puts a small baby in the front seat. Taylor decides that she cannot abandon the child, so she takes the little child with her out west all the way to Tuscon. She discovers that the child is a girl, and names her Turtle.
Another main character of the novel is Lou Ann Ruiz, another woman from Kentucky living in Tuscon. Her husband, Angel, left her right after she gave birth to a son, who she named Dwayne Ray. Lou Ann Ruiz is having trouble coping with the loss of her husband, while having to care for another body and feed another mouth. Lou Ann and Taylor meet and become thick as thieves, so that Lou Ann lets Taylor live with her.
Taylor meets other people, including Mattie, the owner of Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, and Esperanza and Estevan, a Guatemalan couple living with Mattie. They are very nice people, but the couple could be arrested for being illegal immigrants, and Mattie could be punished for giving them room and board.
The rest of the story shows how Taylor raises Turtle with support from Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray, the way Taylor makes a living and meets new people in Tuscon, and how Mattie deals with Esperanza and Estevan, with their legal and personal issues. Turtle grows to be a young child under the caring motherhood of Taylor, while Dwayne Ray matures under Lou Ann.
Kingsolver's first novel was a decent book. The plot was compelling enough, and the characters had personalities that did not make the book a complete bore. There was nothing deliberately bad about The Bean Trees, but there was not anything truly good about it, either.
http://www.amazon.com/Bean-Trees-Novel-P-S/dp/0061765228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247628924&sr=8-1
Grade: 6.5
The story concerns Marietta Greer, a girl from Pittman County, Kentucky. She finally leaves her small town to go west in her early 20s. While on her trip, she changes her name to Taylor. While at a bar in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, an old Indian woman walks up to her car and puts a small baby in the front seat. Taylor decides that she cannot abandon the child, so she takes the little child with her out west all the way to Tuscon. She discovers that the child is a girl, and names her Turtle.
Another main character of the novel is Lou Ann Ruiz, another woman from Kentucky living in Tuscon. Her husband, Angel, left her right after she gave birth to a son, who she named Dwayne Ray. Lou Ann Ruiz is having trouble coping with the loss of her husband, while having to care for another body and feed another mouth. Lou Ann and Taylor meet and become thick as thieves, so that Lou Ann lets Taylor live with her.
Taylor meets other people, including Mattie, the owner of Jesus Is Lord Used Tires, and Esperanza and Estevan, a Guatemalan couple living with Mattie. They are very nice people, but the couple could be arrested for being illegal immigrants, and Mattie could be punished for giving them room and board.
The rest of the story shows how Taylor raises Turtle with support from Lou Ann and Dwayne Ray, the way Taylor makes a living and meets new people in Tuscon, and how Mattie deals with Esperanza and Estevan, with their legal and personal issues. Turtle grows to be a young child under the caring motherhood of Taylor, while Dwayne Ray matures under Lou Ann.
Kingsolver's first novel was a decent book. The plot was compelling enough, and the characters had personalities that did not make the book a complete bore. There was nothing deliberately bad about The Bean Trees, but there was not anything truly good about it, either.
http://www.amazon.com/Bean-Trees-Novel-P-S/dp/0061765228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247628924&sr=8-1
Grade: 6.5
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