review: my place

I didn't expect to like My Place.

I got it for my birthday and didn't like the cover.  If you'd told me it was non-fiction, I probably still wouldn't have got to it yet.

But I read it.  And, what's more, within the first chapter I was actually into the book.

I'm not sure what I expected -- boredom, presumably -- but I didn't get it.  It's a book I think you could accurately term "beautiful," which also generally sends me scurrying the opposite direction, but was really well written, and enjoyable to read.

I think it's possible I wouldn't have liked it in high school (I think it's one of those books that gets put on recommended reading lists for Australian high schoolers, along the lines of a To Kill a Mockingbird), but, gosh, I'm really actually nearly a decade removed from high school now.  I was going to say perhaps my tastes are maturing, but I read Pilgrim's Progress as a fifth-grader, so I'm not sure they had too terribly far to go.  Not that I got much out of it, but I also despise re-reading, so whatever I did manage to glean is probably all I'm going to get.

But My Place is a beautiful book.  It is the first person narration of Sally, a little Australian girl of, to her, unknown origins.  It is her quest to discover her roots, which sounds terribly pretentious, but is actually extremely down-to-earth.

There's a blurb on the back of the book from Alice Walker of The Color Purple fame, and there are definite similarities between the plight of African Americans and the struggle Sally's family had.  It's a monumental journey, but not in a tiresome sense.  It's very real, very grounded and very much worth reading.

I think the thing that worried me was that there wouldn't be any plot, any momentum or any forward pull -- any of the "but-what's-going-to-happen-next?!" variety of anticipation.  I, however, found myself finishing the last hundred pages or so in one fell swoop, wanting desperately to know the mysteries Sally herself was so desperately seeking.

I can't tell, though.  Now it's your turn.