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Book Reviews -
Women's Fiction
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Written by Jennifer Collins
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 Raising Hope by Katie Willard is the story of a girl namedócan you guess?óyes, Hope. It is also the story of Ruth (Hope's aunt and co-guardian), Sara Lynn (her other co-guardian) and Mary (Sara Lynn's elderly mother). The novel centers around the summer of Hope's twelfth birthday. As she is coming of age, the women who have raised her since she was just a week old are coming to terms with the choices they have made and the directions their lives have taken over the last twelve years.
My first reaction to the characters was that they were flat and stereotypical. Ruth was an angry, independent woman with a foul mouth and a foul attitude toward life. She grew up in a single parent household with a mother as hard and angry as she was. Sara Lynn had a privileged life as the only child of an affluent couple. She was smart, talented and capable. Hope was almost twelve years old and completely obsessed with herself, fitting in and getting her period. The flat characters and the difficult first-person present point-of-view made the first four chapters slow and difficult to get through.
As the novel progressed, however, I began to see that these stereotypical characters were more complex than would first appear. Ruth must learn to trust others and to open herself up to being loved. The true Sara Lynn is living behind the facade of her educated, well-bred self. She must come to find her true voice and follow her own path, not just parroting her mother's voice or doing what will please her parents. Hope discovers that by turning her attention out of her self and into the world, she will find more meaning in her life and answers to the questions and doubts that growing up without her mother and father has given her. And Mary must learn to let go and allow Sara Lynn to be her own woman.
The catalyst for much of the changes in the novel is the appearance of Sam, the almost too handsome and too perfect tennis pro at Sara Lynn's club. Unlike the women who are tangled in self-doubt and pleasing others, he lives each day to the fullest and always manages to say the right things. Falling in love with him is not hard, but the consequences for Hope and Sara Lynn are not what they expected.
The most moving part of the book for me was when Sara Lynn's mother, Mary, takes a turn at narrating. Mary had what appeared to be a perfect life: prominent lawyer husband, beautiful home. All that was missing was a baby. As with the other characters, she does not understand quite how she got to this place in her life as a widow with a daughter who has seemingly turned against her. She thinks back to the many miscarriages she experienced before finally conceiving Sara Lynn late in life.
"All I ever wanted in my life was to be a mother. To love a child and watch her grow. I never could have guessed how it would feel to let her go. Why, it feels like cramping that's come too early, a mass of bloody tissue leaving my body too soon. Stay, I want to whisper. Don't leave me just yet."
If you can get past the sometimes contrived language and awkward narrative, Willard's debut novel is a satisfactory summer read sure to illicit some discussion in a women's book group. |
