I just watched the movie. I liked it but they did take creative liberties in my opinion that I don't think added to the story like the main character seeing her mother return.

But yikes. This book is the antithesis of Mormonism. And my in-laws loved it.

I don't get it. It is a story of a woman scorned by society and surviving and thriving. And it mocks marriage. Maybe there is something in the wildness of the story that appeals to my Mormon relations. I have no ideas what.

Seeing that this book was appearing on so many lists, plus having done a decade in Crawfish Territory (they were CRAWFISH, not CRAWDADS) I picked up the book, got a few pages into it, and closed it out of my Kindle collection. That doesn't happen very often. I did a ten-year stint in Louisiana, so I thought I would understand. I didn't even like the nasty little things.

I get it. It's not everyone's book.

I loved the book because I'm a child of severe neglect. The book has neglect through family leaving. My family was right there neglecting me and the biggest offenders were my parents. My mother loves this book probably in the same vein as me through her late mother neglected her through having to work to pay their bills and she hates her late drunk father who she had to help care for as a child and he was really abusive.

But the movie shows the story in a highly female centric fashion. I realized this only from the movie. It is very feminist. So the fact that my in-laws and my mother like it so much is surprising.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2022 11:04AM by Elder Berry.

Crawfish ? How do you know they are not crayfish ?

They're mudbugs where I live.

crayfish (n.)

"small, freshwater lobster," early 14c., crevis, from Old French crevice, escrevice "crayfish" (13c., Modern French écrevisse), probably from Frankish *krebitja or a similar Germanic word that is a diminutive form of the root of crab (n.1); compare Old High German krebiz "crab, shellfish," German Krebs. Modern spelling is established from 16c., a folk-etymology alteration under influence of fish (n.).

https://www.etymonline.com/word/crayfish

It also acknowledges crawfish as an American form of the word, which in the 19th century meant to back out of something.

Intriguing.

Aren't they actually crayfish?

It is a story of a woman scorned by society and surviving and thriving.

-Maybe LDS women find this very appealing because it reinforces the constant self-sacrifice for worthy church goals to be so rewarding. A perpetual victim that validates crummy relief society meetings and hallow primary teachers in-service meetings.

So much time is surrendered to the church.

The talented yet hidden independent woman who didn't need a man. It is probably a huge female Mormon fantasy.

My sister wants me to read it and see the movie. I buy books and don't read them. I used to be the best reader in elementary school and got a prize every year for reading the most. I was reading on a high school level in elementary school.

BUT when I had to work 2 jobs and raise my kids I had to force myself not to read as once I get into a book, I have to keep reading. And my eyes didn't help out. Now that my cataracts are gone, am I reading. Well, on the computer and I type a few hours a day.

I have a box full of books I've purchased and haven't read them. I got one out the other day about a woman married to a gay man and have I even opened it? Nope. I need to. I'd say that should be a goal. NO GOALS. I need to crochet again, too. I bought enough yarn to do so.

I thought I needed a man. It turns out that I am the strong one. It might be a good book for my kids. I think a lot of my son's problems stem from his father abandoning us. Even my "husband" thinks that.

Just think of all the time you saved from reading The Book of Mormon!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2022 05:34PM by Elder Berry.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought I needed a man.

Excellent book title if ever I saw one!

First I was afraid, I was petrified...

I'll have to read that one.

I was just reading an article about a book when I saw your post (I multi-task, ha). So I'm going to borrow your thread to add in a comment about a different book entirely. Thanks in advance, EB, for giving me the space.

From Emily Temple (on Literary Hub). As an aside, the writer's last name is a funny coincidence in view of RfM's main topic & reason for being, lol.

Ms. Temple is discussing "the best first paragraph" she's read.

She says: "...'We Have Always Lived in the Castle', the latter of which features what I consider to be the best first paragraph of all time, or at least of any novel that I have ever read. Here it is:

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

----

Quite apart from its content, I stumble over Temple's pronouncement that this is "the best first paragraph of all time" because she then goes on to qualify her statement, advisedly imho, by adding "...at least of any novel that I have ever read".

Exactly. Of any novel she has read she deems this opener the best. So she should be saying "this is the best first paragraph of any I have so far read".

But also, there are many candidates for good, excellent or best paragraphs in non-fiction.

And my next impression is that WHAT??? I scarcely understand her best paragraph.

I'd go with the tried and true such as books or paragraphs that start out like "Call me Ishmael" or "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen". And like that.


Sorry for the major diversion. But I'm having fun with words today and you gave me an opening...

One thing about books and authors and readers: There's plenty to satisfy every taste and we don't, and couldn't possibly, likely, all agree on "the best". But it's fun to discuss.

Books have strange powers to affect and influence human beings.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2022 01:46PM by Nightingale.

Books have strange powers to affect and influence human beings.


Sounds like something Kafka would have said.

Fun fact: Barred owls often eat crawdads. If they eat enough of them, their feathers take on a pink hue like flamingos.

We have barred owls in the woods and we have crawdads in the creek, but I've not seen a pink owl....yet.

They only hang out around wizards. You must not have any in your area.