Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

Synopsis:

“A girl comes of age against the knife.”

So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence–both from outside the family, and also, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family’s darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.

But despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father’s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family’s past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt–moments that has stung her so deeply, she could not tell them, until now.

Inspired by the life of her own mother, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by telling this heartbreaking yet magical story–a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the freshest and most important voices in American fiction.

Edition:

Hardcover (purchased from Book of the Month Club – this is my referral link, so feel free to use it if you want to sign up! 😎)

Trigger Warnings:

If you can stomach what is at times an incredibly tough storyline, I promise you it is absolutely worth reading.

My Thoughts:

I hope that you read this book. And I hope when you do, you have tissue for days. You’re gonna need it. Betty is one of those books that’s going to make you ugly cry. And you’re going to worry that you might never stop. You will, I promise – but it’s gonna take a minute.

Betty made me fall in love with two people: Betty Carpenter, and her father. Landon is a very imperfect person, but he is a man who loves his children above all else. In a book absolutely overflowing with quotable passages, this one describing Landon, and his feelings about life, the universe, and his children, might be my absolute favorite.

“Some men know the exact amount of money in their bank accounts,” she continued. “Other men know how many miles are on their car and how many more miles it’ll handle. Other men know the batting average of their favorite baseball player and more other men know the exact sum Uncle Sam has screwed ’em. Your father knows no such figures. The only numbers Landon Carpenter has in his head are the numbers of stars in the sky on the days his children were born. I don’t know about you, but I would say that a man who has skies in his head full of the stars of his children, is a man who deserves his child’s love. Especially from the child with the most stars.”

Here’s the thing about Betty – it’s subject matter is, overall, pretty horrific. It is at times extremely taxing to read. But it is also incredibly beautiful. Betty grows up hard. She’s surrounded by extreme poverty, violence, racism, and misogyny. She’s surrounded by just about every awful thing you can imagine. But Betty is a god damned fighter. She’s incredibly tough. She discovers that writing is a way for her to escape her circumstances. So she writes her story. All of it. The good, the bad, and the unbearably terrible.

Look, Betty is not going to be for everyone. As the trigger warning section indicates, there is some really difficult subject matter here. And honestly, I’m worried I’ve forgotten a trigger or two (or ten). There are entire sections of story that are really hard to read. You’re going to have to stop reading sometimes and just have yourself an ugly cry. I guarantee it. But to be perfectly frank with you, this is one of the best written books that I have ever read. Tiffany McDaniel is an incredible talent. She manages to take a story that is, at times, uglier than you can imagine, and weaves it seamlessly into a beautiful, nuanced story. Betty is a reminder that you don’t have to be a sum of your parts. You can transcend your circumstances. You just have to learn to think a little more like Landon, and subsequently Betty.

Rating:

And then more stars. All the stars. I picked this book up because everyone I interact with on Book Twitter seemed to be talking about it. And you know what? They were right. Betty is easily a Top Ten Best Written Books I’ve Ever Read. It’s so, so good. And seriously, I think I needed about a half hour after I finished it to compose myself. I cannot recommend it highly enough if you can stomach the subject matter.