Amanda Peters (2023)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
This book was a Pandemic Book Club aleternate selection. It was my month to select three books, and I immediately put the books, ebooks, and/or audiobooks on hold at the libraries. I started listening to this before the vote started. It recieved no votes. I listened to the audio (Chapter 1 twice), and I think I will read the book when it becomes available, particularly if it isn't until summer. (For this reason, I included the book cover, which I don't usually do for audiobooks.)
This was not a happy book, and it was a long-term story. Early on, we know that this story is being told by the characters when they are older, but it isn't readily obvious how old they are, and that makes it a little depressing.
The story has two narrators: a woman who was adbucted as a child in 1962 and grows up to realize that something isn't right, and the youngest older brother who blames himself for her disappearance. Of the two, the Ruthie/Norma is more compelling. Joe's story seems almost pointless -- his addiction and his running away from his wife (whom he didn't know was pregnant) don't add to Ruthie's story. It's not like he sees her at any point.
Ruthie is a Mi'kmaq girl from Nova Scotia who vanishes from a berry-picking camp in Maine. The story follows the aftermath for her family and the girl who grows up in a different life, haunted by fragmented memories.
There are some inconsistencies in Norma's story. She realizes things are wrong (she's not in old photos she finds before they disappear and her skin color doesn't match her family), and later reveals that she assumes that she was adopted. But there are other times where it seems that she believes that she's her new mother's daughter, particularly after she miscarries.
Side note: the miscarriage in this book carried some weight and had some fallout, so it wasn't as bad I've complained about in other reviews where it seems like a pointless trope used to generate drama or some kind of emotional earthquake.
Also, when Norma mentions she and Aunt Ruthie cleaning out her mother's house, I got the impression (it might've been stated, or I might've assumed it) that her mother had already died. By the way, this was depressing because this memory happens early in the book. Later, Norma lives the truth before her mother's death.
*** Spoilers: ***
Ruthie doesn't learn the truth until she's in her 50s, so despite being loved by her adbuctors and treated as their real daughter, her entire life was stolen from her. Her mother's problems with having children causes Norma to decide after her miscarriage that she doesn't wish to try for more children. This causes her husband to leave her, and she doesn't remarry.
Joe doesn't get to see Norma until he's on his deathbed. Likewise, he's too embarrassed to go back just to meet his own daughter, who is accepting of him, at least. Ruthie/Norma at least gets to meet some of her birth family, but her father and oldest brother have already passed away by this point.
*** END OF Spoilers: ***
Other than it being depressing, I can't find a reason to hate it or not recommend it, if you like depressing stories like this.
If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.
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