The Center of Everything Laura Moriarty

Amazon.comLaura Moriarty"s debut novel is a simple story, but effectively told. Ten-year-old Evelyn Bucknow lives with her not very responsible young mother, Tina, on the outskirts of a small Kansas town. The Center of Everything follows a clean arc: How Evelyn, a gifted but poor student, negotiates the pitfalls of her background to become a college student. The book shows the scary tenuousness of poverty. When Tina"s car breaks down, their life falls apart like a flimsy cardboard edifice. Evelyn can"t get to school, Tina can"t get to work, and unseemly relationships with men who own cars develop. The novel"s other theme is the importance of teaching; when one of her teachers tells her she"s gifted, Evelyn"s life is changed. "She takes off her glasses, still looking at me. I take off my glasses too, because for a moment I think she is going to place them on my eyes, the way you place a crown on someone"s head when they become queen. Welcome to being smart." As she heads into adolescence, Evelyn sees her best friend fall in love and become pregnant, just as Tina did when she was a teenager. Evelyn resists these traps, not without some lovelorn, lonely moments. The Center of Everything careens dangerously near fingerwagging at times, but the book"s salvation comes from unexpected quarters: Evelyn"s mom Tina. At the outset, she seems beleaguered and lost, but as the book progresses she develops a wry resiliency. We get to watch Evelyn and Tina grow up together, and it"s a rare sight. --Claire DedererBook Descriptionn Laura Moriarty"s extraordinary first novel, a young girl tries to make sense of an unruly world spinning around her. Growing up with a single mother who is chronically out of work and dating a married man, 10-year old Evelyn Bucknow learns early how to fend for herself. Offering an affecting portrayal of a troubled mother/daughter relationship, one in which the daughter is very often expected to play the role of the adult, the novel also gives readers a searing rendering of the claustrophobia of small town midwestern life, as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl. Evelyn must come to terms with the heartbreaking lesson of first love-that not all loves are meant to be-and determine who she is and who she wants to be. Stuck in the middle of Kansas, between best friends, and in the midst of her mother"s love, Evelyn finds herself...in The Center of Everything. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Center of Everything (Laura Moriarty)