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liralen's review against another edition
3.0
Back at the stream, my sister's wool sweater is heavy with water, her rubber boots are filling. The stream is pulling at her so intently. She can't swim, but she thinks, Maybe I should just let go. And then she opens her hands and drops off the log. (In her memory, this is the defining moment of her childhood—she does not save herself.)
...
Bo is a few feet belong the log. He sees Beky tumbling towards him in the current. He wades in and grabs her sweater, hauls her out. Beky is choke-hollering. He looks around, it's just him and her. (This is Bo's crystallizing moment—grown-ups will not save you.) (53)
Perks is clear from the beginning that this is not the 60s memoir you might expect. It is not hippies and Woodstock and Malcolm X. But it is most decidedly counterculture, and in ways that get more complicated as the book goes on. She was raised on the campus of a school for 'problem' kids, in a quasi-commune run primarily by her father. Anarchy and non-monogamy and a father who at first seems an idealist and later less idealistic and more eccentric.
It's clear that, as a child, Perks couldn't imagine living outside this world, but also that, as she grew older, she started to understand how much it differed from the average American experience. And then...it was sort of a commune, but it wasn't equal; there were different roles and expectations for men and women, and Perks's father wanted to remain the one calling the shots. Whatever else this is a story of, it's not a story of utopia.
Interesting from a child's perspective, but it must have been especially fascinating from an adult's perspective.
...
Bo is a few feet belong the log. He sees Beky tumbling towards him in the current. He wades in and grabs her sweater, hauls her out. Beky is choke-hollering. He looks around, it's just him and her. (This is Bo's crystallizing moment—grown-ups will not save you.) (53)
Perks is clear from the beginning that this is not the 60s memoir you might expect. It is not hippies and Woodstock and Malcolm X. But it is most decidedly counterculture, and in ways that get more complicated as the book goes on. She was raised on the campus of a school for 'problem' kids, in a quasi-commune run primarily by her father. Anarchy and non-monogamy and a father who at first seems an idealist and later less idealistic and more eccentric.
It's clear that, as a child, Perks couldn't imagine living outside this world, but also that, as she grew older, she started to understand how much it differed from the average American experience. And then...it was sort of a commune, but it wasn't equal; there were different roles and expectations for men and women, and Perks's father wanted to remain the one calling the shots. Whatever else this is a story of, it's not a story of utopia.
Interesting from a child's perspective, but it must have been especially fascinating from an adult's perspective.
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