Title
By the Shore
Author
Galaxy Craze
Copyright
1999
So, its safe to say that I haven't posted anything up here recently and that's for a very good reason. With all the reading I had been doing to finish up college, I didn't have time to read for myself. I'm sorry about that, but research papers took over my life for a brief period of time.
Anyway, so here's a neat book by a newer author (is 9 years ago new?) and it is her first book. It is a story about a young girl named May who is dealing with that troubled time between child and teenager. She lives with her mother and little brother Eden in a somewhat unsuccessful bed and breakfast by the shore in England. The story takes place (according to the back cover) in the sixties, but really the themes and troubles in it transcend any real time place. I would argue that the story could take place anywhere from 1960 to 1980 without there being any real problems. It is a story that has a feeling of removal from the rest of the world. It is written with simple vocabulary that make sense coming from our young narrator. The complexity is clear on the page, though.
When a new boarder named Rufus (an American writer) comes to stay at the bed and breakfast, it becomes clear that there is a romance between he and May's mother developing. This story deals with a lot of themes that I'm fond of reading about. Most notable would be the parent/child relationship since May's mother is a terrible failure as a parent. A great theme in this book is women and how they look at each other. There are very few male characters in this story, the only notable ones being Rufus and Eden. Eden is a child and and Rufus is often quiet and withdrawn from the other characters making this clearly a story about the female characters. This books asks, what is it to be a woman, and what kind of woman should May become?
Read this story, you won't regret it.
