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Book Review
So, I just finished this novel two days ago for my Literary Appreciation course. It was a good novel overall, but I did find it to be slow to start, which may bother other readers.
The novel is in first person narration, by the main character Del (Della). Del starts the novel as a young girl growing up in South Western Ontario with her younger brother and parents. Her father is a fox farmer, which is all I will tell you since this part disturbed me greatly as a vegetarian and animal rights activist. If I was conducting a reader's advisory, I would steer people like myself away from this novel.
Anyway, Del grows up on the farm with her father and mother and then her parents separate so she, her brother and her mother can live in the small city/town nearby. Del tells us her experiences growing up from a child to her early 20's. I thought it was interesting the way she described the life of a girl becoming a woman. Her mother hates patriarchy, but Del does not seem to have a problem with it until she gets her first serious boyfriend. There are some sexual experiences in the novel, one fairly graphic one that will leave you cringing, and as such it is not suitable for younger audiences.
Overall, a good novel in the tradition of early Margaret Atwood (i.e. The Edible Woman). I'd recommend it to those who like rural and Canadian literature. Grade: B+
