Book Review CINNAMON GIRL Trish MacEnulty

Thank you to the author Trisha MacEnulty, publishers LivingstonPress, and Henry Roi PR, for an advance digital copy of ᴄɪɴɴᴀᴍᴏɴ ɢɪʀʟ. All views are mine.


This is a lively tale about a girl living in the sixties and seventies.The book has a wonderful "memoir"-like feel that is so intimate and believable. Even though I found in my read, the main character, Eli, is annoying in the way of overzealous young people, I still liked her and invested in the story her life tells in this book.

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. The issues of racism are being written, from the perspective of well-meaning but ignorant white girl learning about the depth of the problem for the first time. I think this perspective matters, not to teach about these issues, but as an example that the learning can and should be done. Beautiful character work.

2. The innocence of this fifteen year old on the road and out on her own for the first time is so well depicted. Oral sex must be some serious tongue kissing, I decided.

3. It reads like a memoir, which is clever in that the book immerses intensely in this first person narrator's voice and character, and she's passing interesting, if not certainly annoying.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. "If women were truly equal, there would be no war." Uhm, what? The politics in this book are...a little conflicted.

2. This reads like a memoir, meaning without any more structure or drive than chronology. It doesn't feel like the book is about anything accept this character getting older.

Ratings:
Cover: 4.6
Concept: 4.3
Character Work: 4.4
Settings / World Work: 4.6
Narrative: 4.1
Pacing: 3.8
Plot / Logic: 4.3
Ending: 4
Steam: n/a
Style: 4.5
Overall Rating: 4.28

Star Rating: 4
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: September 1 2023

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