Ack, almost out of time on the August Color Me Brown challenge and Carleen’s book deserves to be included.

Shay (not LaShay, never LaShay, never ever ever!) is having trouble in graduate school. An unspecified trouble, but a trouble serious enough that her adviser firmly suggests she take a year off. She agrees to take a semester, and because she has nowhere else to go, moves in with her mother in Denver. Her AA-attending, new-baby having, flower-gardening mother who, when Shay was a baby, left her home alone at night while she went out and partied down with random men. Shay, not too surprisingly, has therefore learned to take care of herself, and to hate her mother. She has also learned to pull her hair out by the roots whenever she feels anxious.

This is a funny book. The cover makes it seem nice and inspirational, and Shay will get her groove back and make up with her mother and they will drink a lot of herbal tea and learn to bond. Okay, maybe they do, but it doesn’t start out that way. Shay has some seriously reasonable hatred festering in her and she brings it with her in a big old sack of grievance, starting on page one.

I really, really sympathized with Shay. If that were my mom, NOTHING, would make me more insanely furious than her getting her act together and becoming “the chocolate Martha Stewart.” Despite the many “serious” themes, this book was a fun, quick read.

Recommended reading:

Postcards from the Edge — Carrie Fisher

The Untelling — Tayari Jones

Amy’s Answering Machine: Messages from Mom — Amy Borkowski

(Color Me Brown is an August challenge by Color Online)