Raspberry House Blues by Linda Holeman (from Winnipeg!)
Raspberry House Blues is centered around a teenage girl named Poppy. I didn't find the story captivating as much as interesting. It didn't pull me in, but I got the story pretty well and in the end, I think it's a pretty good one. Poppy is going through a rebellious stage and is being totally hostile to her adopted mother, because of her desire to find her real mom. Poppy moves to Winnipeg while her adopted mom is out. She moves in with her dad, step mom and their kid in this phsyco, crazy house of snake oil and insanity (they let the kid shit on the floor until he learns for example). Luckily, Poppy is able to not spend to much time their.
As it says on the back of the book, Poppy's quest to find her real mother is all about the true meaning of love. At first, Poppy is depressed a lot, and has this thing called the M-book where she puts pictures of what she thinks her mom looks like. This obsession of filling this semi-imaginary hole in her life of not knowing her real mother creates a ton of anxiety and sadness. The way she escapes this in the end is by sharing her feelings with her accepting dad and step mom and a few other people, as well as a bit of trial and error. The character of Becca Jell is one of the main ones in the story. She's a dry-bed actress, never made it big in hollywood, and lives a weird, light fantasy life. Poppy actually thinks she's her mom and gets into this big imaginary fantasy.
With most books, you're left to imagine the setting and it's many described characteristics. It was a different experience for Raspberry House Blues because it's set in the Wolsely area of Winnipeg, and I'm very familiar with the surroundings they talk about. It's exciting when one of the characters mentions how he goes to Gordon Bell High School (the one I go to). That's one of the things that kept me going with this book.
How can I identify with this book though? Not directly of course, because my mom didn't abandon me, (or so I think). In an indirect way I can. The way Poppy got caught up in this imaginary world and distracted, thinking that she had to find her mother to be happy in life is a place everyone can get caught in. For example, say I want to go to bed and read at 9:00. First I have to play a bit of gamecube, then go on the computer and annoy everyone with my banter and then finally get in bed at 10:30. That's all on a slightly smaller scale but it's a form of procrastinating, and putting these imaginary barriers in front of ourselves so we won't have to deal with our real pressing issues, or goals. These distractions seem so real at the time, but they're fabricated unconsciously and most of the time we're living from the unconscious and we believe whatever it throws at us. So how is this all related to the true meaning of love? As I mentioned before, Poppy finds a community that listens to her struggle, and that helps her a lot, as I have with Watershed and my friends from school.
Overall, I would recommend this book to you. It's a pretty interesting story, and has a lot of the crazy stuff in Winnipeg that you could relate to.
As it says on the back of the book, Poppy's quest to find her real mother is all about the true meaning of love. At first, Poppy is depressed a lot, and has this thing called the M-book where she puts pictures of what she thinks her mom looks like. This obsession of filling this semi-imaginary hole in her life of not knowing her real mother creates a ton of anxiety and sadness. The way she escapes this in the end is by sharing her feelings with her accepting dad and step mom and a few other people, as well as a bit of trial and error. The character of Becca Jell is one of the main ones in the story. She's a dry-bed actress, never made it big in hollywood, and lives a weird, light fantasy life. Poppy actually thinks she's her mom and gets into this big imaginary fantasy.
With most books, you're left to imagine the setting and it's many described characteristics. It was a different experience for Raspberry House Blues because it's set in the Wolsely area of Winnipeg, and I'm very familiar with the surroundings they talk about. It's exciting when one of the characters mentions how he goes to Gordon Bell High School (the one I go to). That's one of the things that kept me going with this book.
How can I identify with this book though? Not directly of course, because my mom didn't abandon me, (or so I think). In an indirect way I can. The way Poppy got caught up in this imaginary world and distracted, thinking that she had to find her mother to be happy in life is a place everyone can get caught in. For example, say I want to go to bed and read at 9:00. First I have to play a bit of gamecube, then go on the computer and annoy everyone with my banter and then finally get in bed at 10:30. That's all on a slightly smaller scale but it's a form of procrastinating, and putting these imaginary barriers in front of ourselves so we won't have to deal with our real pressing issues, or goals. These distractions seem so real at the time, but they're fabricated unconsciously and most of the time we're living from the unconscious and we believe whatever it throws at us. So how is this all related to the true meaning of love? As I mentioned before, Poppy finds a community that listens to her struggle, and that helps her a lot, as I have with Watershed and my friends from school.
Overall, I would recommend this book to you. It's a pretty interesting story, and has a lot of the crazy stuff in Winnipeg that you could relate to.
posted by featheredtar at Saturday, June 18, 2005
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