The Silver Star

My inaugural book when I first joined the book club was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and it quickly became one of those books I still talk about and recommend almost five years later. A couple of years ago, still big fans, we picked up her Half Broke Horses, a memoir of her grandmother on her mother's side. Her latest, The Silver Star, is a mix of the two and a tired use of very similar themes.

Taking place in the 70's, the too-long, under-developed story centers around Jean "Bean" Holladay and her older sister, Liz, on their own while their flaky mother chases dreams of Hollywood stardom. Surviving only on pot-pies (which, oddly enough, made me crave a pot pie), their mother Charlotte, doesn't come back after one of her trips so the girls decide to go where their survival might be aided by an adult figure of some responsibility. I'm starting to think that only in a Jeannette Walls novel is young children traveling cross-country alone acceptable - even in the 70's - but I guess I'm just a fuddy-duddy like that.

Making it all the way to Virginia where their uncle has been tending to the once opulent but now decrepit Holladay estate, he hesitantly lets the girls in despite their penchant for causing trouble in the name of good. They soon start a life that is on the verge of normal but couldn't be entirely so since it is Jeannette Walls after all, an author who found the homeless/poor theme and decided to stick with it.

Obviously, one can't fault her for exploring those themes in her first two books as they were memoirs. But with this being her first novel, I had expectations she'd branch out a bit more. Look at Outlander, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter; the imagination knows no bounds! So throughout most of the book I found myself wondering, as an author, why she didn't explore a place she has never been.

I might have been able to overlook that for the most part if the stories and sub-themes had actually been developed and not come to a screeching halt. Every instance of "drama" was shorter than the last with the reader forced to visualize, assume, and do most of the work. Walls created a story that could have gone several different places but chickened out, and was written with a style more suitable to the Young Adult genre. If one thing can be said, Walls expertly wrote from the prospective of a 12-year old.

Others in the book club generally agreed, that The Silver Star was very much been there, done that, got the burlap sack you wore as a dress for a month. We get it.

Obviously, it's no secret this was not one of my favorite books, especially of her's. It's not terrible and might be more appreciated if it was read before her others instead of after. Either way, wait until it hits the bargain bin. It's a short, uncomplicated read, good for reading during a weekend while you're in between better books. Sorry, Ms. Walls; I'll be interested in what you come out with next...