I must admit, after spotting many negative reviews of this on Goodreads, I was a little wary to read this. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a few years, and I thought I'd give it a try. I ended up really liking this book. It's not the easiest book to read, in regards to its subject matter, but I think it's an important one, all the same. Basically, this is the story of Ruth and her life. I liked Ruth. She may have been simple-minded, but sometimes, she'd say something that really just made me think, and I love authors who can do that. Ruth is not pretentious and she's not trying to tell a woe-is-me story, even though my heart broke for her again and again. You really get the feeling that she's just telling her story, whatever it entails, good or bad. Ruth is a very naive person, but at the same time she has this astounding deeper understanding of the way life and nature works. I'm not quite sure what it was that sucked me into this book. I usually don't go for these depressing reads, and this one really is a bummer. Poor Ruth just can't get a break. I was rooting for her the whole time though, and maybe I kept reading because I wanted to see her break free. Because of this, the foreshadowing greatly enhanced the impact of the final climax for me. I wanted to see Ruth make it on her own and the foreshadowing made me want to see it even more. I don't want to give away the ending because it certainly flabbergasted me, but I like to think that she's gonna make it some day and "try her wings," as she says. She mentions at the end of the novel that she wishes she could change her name to "Ruth Truth," but I think a better name would be "Resilient Ruth." Possibly one of the things that kept me reading was the character development. I tend to feel a close connection with the character telling the story, so it wasn't difficult for me to relate to Ruth. At times, she angered me, only because she would understand one of the other characters but be naive about some of the others. I was frustrated especially with her feelings about Ruby. May was a fascinating character to me. I hated her and she made me sick sometimes, but then she'd say something or do something that made me feel more sorry for her than anything else. Overall, I think this was a beautifully written, albeit depressing, book well worth a read.
Here's what I'm learning about myself:I despise po' country lit written by women.Is that terrible? Does that make me a bad feminist?In Country? Hated it. All these poor white trash stories about kids growin' up harder n' poorer than those other kids over there, wearing ugly clothes, and having lots of scrap metal in the yard......yeah I just can't deal.Because these stories never GO anywhere. It just sounds like a lot of whining through the front, middle, and back of life.As if whining was courage. As if living poor every day was compelling courage.Look. Being poor is rough. I've been poor. It sucked.But a story has to DO something. It can't be day after day, year after year of going from being a confused and misunderstood backwoods girl with some small un-nurtured bit of promise to a confused backwoods teen with slightly less promise, to a ridiculous backwoods woman who is no smarter, no more interesting, and no more relavant than anyone else living in a valley made of dirt.Look: populations need stories. John Steinbeck, for crissakes, wrote these people. Wrote them well, too.But this? This plodding journey through an embarrassingly hideous life?John Kennedy Toole did it in The Neon Bible. He was 16 when he wrote that, and even his sad naif protagonist had a few meaningful and well-turned revelations to make it all worthwhile.But I got halfway through the story when I realized it wasn't GOING anywhere. The protagonist was just going to get more and more tedious. Less and less interesting. More and more annoying. Good lord was her voice annoying.Yes, yes, very well-done. The writer's replicated the annoying voice to a T. Y'know there's ways to make that voice less grating without robbing it of authenticity.What authenticity anyway? Is the girl supposed to be a half-wit? Or is she really sort of normal but painfully shy and socially awkward because of her place in society?Sadly, I cannot tell. Because I think I'm supposed to sympathize with her, but in looking at her all I can think is "Yeah, I'd call her a half-wit too, dammit. Then I'd slap her."And, Lord, if one more person in the story offers up a half-wit grin as a means to express innocent and misplaced pleasure I'm going to smack that grin right off their face. Author! A new device! Please!
What do You think about The Book Of Ruth (1989)?
I admit that I purchased this book on a whim as I liked the title. The reviews also looked good and I could see that it was the winner of the Pen/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. I also thought that perhaps it was a modern day version of Ruth from the bible, which, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful Books there. However, that soon proved not to be the case.Initially I thought the book was rather good. It had a rather humorous, odd and yet self-effacing way about it. However, after a while I just couldn't take this in at all; characters such as May, Matt, Ruby, etc. soon became very annoying.I then skim read looking for something that I had perhaps missed in the book (as obviously so many people had liked it), and then sailed on to the end as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I couldn't send it up into my Kindle "cloud" as I had purchased the paperback.I personally found this rather non-linear book was all over the place. My poor just brain couldn't handle it unfortunately.I'm looking at the cover now. I liked the cover photograph by Barry Marcus, and the cover design by Kathy Kikkert. So that's a blessing, of sorts.
—Lynne King
This is the story of a white trash girl named Ruth, her white trash mother and her white trash boyfriend/husband with bad teeth. It was very difficult to make it through this book because I didn't like any of the characters--they were stagnant and annoying throughout. Ruth had great potential but never realized any of it. A bad story was made even worse when about 4/5 of the way through, there was suddenly a horrific and bloody scene that took about 4 pages of graphic descriptions. I was caught completely off-guard because the rest of the book had been so boring. I guess I had kept reading thinking that something had to happen eventually to make the book worthwhile, but what finally did happen was awful. I would have been OK with it all if Ruth had changed for the better or pulled herself together because of the event, but she chose to stay ignorant. I know this is a popular author and book, but I really did not enjoy it at all.
—Marsha
Didn't really care for this book, but didn't hate it either. Not sure that I would recommend it. One of the reviewers of this book called it "a sly and wistful ... human comedy" and another said the "small-town characters are ... appealingly offbeat and brushed with grace" but I wonder if those reviewers read the same book that I did. I found the novel dispiriting, depressing, and rather boring. Perhaps if this was part of a series, and we could also hear others' stories (May's and Matt's and Ruby's and Justy's) in their own voices, I would like it better. Alone, it feels like there is not enough to explain Ruth's feelings, her background, and why she would put up with the things she did, instead of doing something to change them.
—rockle
