4.5 - I finished this last after after only picking up the same morning. I'm shocked how how intense this was. I have to admit this, I kept flipping back to the author picture and wondering how in the world he got this so right. But, I have a idea how.
I think Bishop is a Tim. I think Bishop had a Liz. And I think it effected him so deeply that he thought and thought and then thought some more. Now, maybe I'm reading too much into this and maybe not, either way I'd love to know. I think some of the logistics have been dramatized for effect but that the soul of the story might just be Bishop's.
This is beautiful - so very beautiful. The book is one long "letter" although sometimes Liz is being spoken to directly about current events and other time's she's hearing her mother reminisce.
What took away the half a star for me? The ending. And to be fully honest I'm not even sure whether this is a full five stars or not because I can't get a grip on how I feel about the ending.
I think the book may have been "better" had Bishop not ended the book the way he did. (Can anyone tell I'm trying to not add a spoiler here? lol) I think leaving the ending in the manner that the rest of the book was written would have been more powerful in a way. That's what I was expecting, for some reason, so I was surprised at the "tidy" ending.
Read for yourself, no doubt in my mind that I'll pick up Bishop's next book. If he gets better with each book than we have a lot to look forward to!
When I had seen this book around the blogosphere, I noted that the author was male and I assumed the story was about a father writing a letter to his daughter. So, imagine my surprise when I began the story...and it was the mother who was the narrator, and author of the letter. I was not only surprised, but delighted as the story took hold of me, and I met Laura Jenkins; first as a worried mother of a runaway teenager, then going back in time to her adolescence, getting to know her during the most painful years of her life. In the letter to her daughter Liz, she reveals secrets that she has kept for decades. She outlines her life beginning when she was her daughter's age, fifteen, and what she endured growing up. She keeps reminding her daughter in the letter that things were "not that much different" between she and her parents than they were between Liz and her parents.
This is a book that can be read straight through...in one sitting. Yes, it's that good. George Bishop is a very talented and gifted author. He accomplishes the amazing task of verbalizing the special relationship between a mother and her daughter so beautifully. I can honestly say that I was very satisfied with the end of the story. Have a box of tissues handy while you are reading this ...you'll need them.
It was 17 years ago, but I remember how frustrating being 15 years old was. I felt like nobody, not even my mother, could ever understand what I was going through. I imagine it was a very frustrating time for my mother, too! Somehow, George Bishop captured these feelings exactly in his book Letter to my Daughter.
As the book begins, Laura's 15-year-old daughter Elizabeth has just run away from home after a bad fight with her parents. Laura is not sure how to cope, and she desparately wants her daughter to know that she loves her and understand her. To express this and to keep herself busy in the hours after her daughter leaves home, Laura begins to write her a letter about her own adolescence. She writes about love and loss, school, boyfriends, friends, and all of the confusing, conflicting feelings that are so common during the teenage years.
I don't know how the author is so empathic to the trials of being a teen-aged girl, but he gets it dead-on. His is an empathic voice through the main character, and he takes the reader on a journey that is both familiar and heart-wrenching. I wish this book was around when I was younger, but I know I will keep it and share it with my potential future daughters. This was a great read!
