Author: Adriana Trigiani
Title: Big Stone Gap
Genre: Gentle Reads
Publication Date: 2000
Number of Pages: 272
Geographical Setting: Big Stone Gap, Virginia
Time Period: Historical (1978)
Synopsis:
Welcome to Big Stone Gap, a small town in the
mountains of Virginia. Meet Ave Maria Mulligan, town pharmacist/resident spinster.
At 35, Ave Maria is not married and has become accustomed to being alone. After
her mother’s death, Ave Maria’s life begins to change in unexpected ways. Her
mother’s biggest secret comes to light: the man Ave Maria thought was her
father is not. On top of this bombshell, Ave Maria must deal with her feelings
for her best friend, Theodore Tipton, and the sudden advances of Jack Mac. She
must also contend with her aunt who wants to take everything away from her. With
the help of her friends, including outspoken Bookmobile driver Iva Lou Wade, Ave
Maria has a lot to figure out.
Characteristics of Gentle Reads:
- Upbeat/Optimistic tone
- Homespun dialect, characters’ Southern pronunciations are written how the characters talk.
- Relationships between characters play large role in story; close-knit community
- Takes place in small town in a Southern, rural area
- Gentle, leisurely pace. Chapters are quite long at about 20-30 pages.
- While sex is discussed, no explicit sex or violence is present in the story
- Mostly profanity-free, but a couple words are present throughout the book which could be offensive to some readers
- Light and humorous, characters and situations are somewhat comical
- There are health scares and deaths, but they are handled in a gentle way; something good seems to come from tragic situations.
- Where the Heart is by Billie Letts
- The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
- Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley
- Lorna Landvik
- Dorothea Benton Frank
- Fannie Flagg
This is not a book I would generally read, but I enjoyed
this book more than I anticipated. While it was sometime unrealistic and a bit cheesy,
the story kept me interested. I could identify with Ave Maria in many ways (I’m
in my 30s, unmarried, completely unattached, live in a small town that I moved
back to after college), so I think that increased my interest in the story. I
was surprised that sex was discussed in the book, but the text book said this
book was on the edge of gentle reads. I will admit, sometimes it is nice to
read a story that is simple and light. This is the first book in a series, and
I am thinking about reading the other books to see what happens to the
characters.
I was also going to write a horror annotation, but I switched to Science Fiction. Stay tuned next week for my Sci-Fi annotation on Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
This is really helpful, especially when you know that sex is discussed and there is a little bit of profanity. That kind of content doesn't bother me, so when I'm reading for fun, I don't notice it. Not having children has also made me rather immune to profanity (not sure that's a good thing, but it's definitely something that has happened!) so it's really helpful when I can find that information before I recommend a book (or movie or TV show) to someone!
ReplyDelete"Station Eleven" has been sitting on the New & Recent shelf, taunting me!! (I already have way too many books checked out.) I look forward to reading your annotation!
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ReplyDeleteI didn't think gentle reads was a genre that I would like, but one of your recommendations, Where the Heart Is, I read a few years ago and really enjoyed, so I should give it a chance!
ReplyDeleteDid the dialect-writing bother you? I usually just want to imagine the way characters sound, and when authors write the words the way they are spoken it can drive me crazy.
For the most part, the dialect didn't bother me too much. The one I noticed a lot was "murried" instead of "married." There might have been some others, but that's the one that stuck with me. I think the author really wanted to stress that Ave Maria spoke a bit differently than the other townspeople.
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