Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I do love historical verse novels, and so I was more or less excited about Caroline Starr Rose’s Blue Birds, even if I didn’t love May B. quite as much as I wanted to (AND even though the 16th century isn’t my first choice for historical fiction).  As I read, however, I realized that what I really wanted was nonfiction about Roanoke; my meticulous need to know what is true and what isn’t makes it hard for me to enjoy books that make too many assumptions about a historical event (case in point:  “The Perfect Storm” drove me crazy).  It was interesting to read about Alis and Kimi, yes, and the author obviously did her research, but I cared a lot more about the event she used as her setting than I did about the fictional characters involved.  The girls’ friendship was affecting, but the book ended up going somewhere I didn’t expect it to–somewhere that seemed a bit far-fetched to me.  (Being a parent made the whole thing worse, by the way.)  In the end, it wasn’t really my thing.

Whether or not I recommend it, then, gets a bit tricky.  If you don’t like a high level of supposition as part of your historical fiction, this is definitely not for you; on the other hand, if that doesn’t bother you and you’re interested by this era in history, you should possibly give it a try.

Let me know what you think of the ending.