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A review by undervmountain
Needlework by Julia Watts
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
Growing up in the US being gay, closeted and loving Dolly Parton is hard, but living in the Bible Belt of rural Kentucky is even harder. Kody struggles with his responsibilities to his family, looking after his sick mother while being raised by his grandmother, and over the course of the story starts to realise that if he wants a a future where he's happy, he's going to have to leave town to find his place in the world.
I've not experienced it myself, but I felt that this was a really accurate depiction of drug addiction, from when we first meet Kody's Mommy, begging at Walmart for drug money, to when she tells him, over and over, that tomorrow she'll do better. I loved that this story humanised her, and I could understand her struggles and see that she was ill, and the author really wrote a complex, interesting character that really felt like she could be a real person.
I could tell while I was reading that the author seemed to have personal experience with these types of towns, and the people that lived in them. Every person truly felt like a real person, and the story didn't shy away from discussions of prejudice and racism, but also showed the complexities of living there that made these people become who they were.
I've not experienced it myself, but I felt that this was a really accurate depiction of drug addiction, from when we first meet Kody's Mommy, begging at Walmart for drug money, to when she tells him, over and over, that tomorrow she'll do better. I loved that this story humanised her, and I could understand her struggles and see that she was ill, and the author really wrote a complex, interesting character that really felt like she could be a real person.
I could tell while I was reading that the author seemed to have personal experience with these types of towns, and the people that lived in them. Every person truly felt like a real person, and the story didn't shy away from discussions of prejudice and racism, but also showed the complexities of living there that made these people become who they were.