My Sunshine Away
This is a book about a boy in the South who goes through his teen years being in love with a broken and unavailable girl, and also about dealing with losing family tragically. It has been described as a coming of age tale. The whole book goes through how he tries to commiserate and relate to the girl he is infatuated with. I don’t really know if I liked the book. I think what the disappointment for me was in the synopsis on Amazon. It makes it seem like a who-done-it type of book where they try to figure out who raped the young girl in the neighborhood one summer in the 80’s where the protagonist grew up. It’s not at all. It’s so much more that coming of age tale about this boy and every intimate thought he has about this girl….to an obsessive level.
The other reason I had a hard time liking it is because I had a hard time relating to the character. Every minute of every day is spent thinking about his crush. I really went back and thought, “I was a little like this when I was in high school.” But, he goes into creep zone by crawling into the tree outside her window at night and watching her, and knowing her schedule for coming and going. That is where I lost the connection with the main character. Being a peeping tom is one of the things they point to as an early indicator for being a sexual predator. Really gave me pause as to what his intentions were even though he kept saying he loved her. There were many times throughout the book where I thought the twist at the end would be that he HAD been the one to rape her.
I would say it was an odd book. There are parts of his life that are very endearing, where I could relate when I looked back on my teenage years, but the level of obsession with one girl really took me away from digging the book.
I would recommend this book to people who like a storyline where someone drastically grows as a person from start to finish.
Malia's Pizza Rating
Breakfast pizza of chicken and waffles, with maple syrup as the sauce!