Review & Book Trailer - Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

This was Jayne Pupek’s debut, the writing was amazing and her characters became real people, I had to remind myself it was a story not real life.

A beautifully written sad story of a young girl that has to grow up to fast. She loves her mom and dad but she has to take responsibilities adult children would have a hard time doing.

As the story unfolds you just want to hold the girl (Ellie)in your arms and protect her. Protect her from the choices, the sadness, the turmoil, the darkness she has to deal with. Her mom is mentally ill and her dad, oh her dad, I will let you read the book.

How can a young child, only 11 years old, take care of mom when her father who she trust completely can’t? Taking care of Ellie’s mom, his wife, has broken him without his own knowledge, I ended up thinking he is the crazy one.

I loved the chapter titles, never really noticed chapters as much as I did during this troublesome journey for Ellie, it was an added special style I enjoyed.

If you read Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls you must read Tomato Girl and vise versa.

Below is taken from Cindy during an interview with Jayne Pupek. http://cindysloveofbooks.blogspot.com/2008/09/recently-i-heard-about-this-great-book.html

Cindy - What was your inspiration for Tomato Girl?

Jayne: The novel came from a narrative poem I had written earlier. When I decided to write a novel, I turned to my poetry for an idea. I was drawn to the characters in the poem, "Tomato Girl." I saw the skeleton of a bigger story and believed it was a good place to begin. My many years spent working in mental health inspired me, too, as I care about the issues of mental health and child abuse.

What do you think of book trailers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-foLb0HIWc