My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The heartwarming story of the healing power of love.
Stay, Girl is a wonderfully heartwarming story of 12-year-old Bet and a fostered beagle named Penny set in 1953 California's Central Valley. While timeless and with universal elements, Bet and Penny's story comes alive in this nostalgic setting of a simpler time and place. Their tale is one of two wounded creatures re-discovering kindness, love, and safety. I couldn't put it down.
Bet is a determined, capable 12-year-old, conditioned much too soon to depending on herself for her most basic needs. When her mother passes away, she takes off from her home in Sacramento and her abusive stepfather and makes her way, by foot, to her mother's brother's home in Amberfields, California, quite some distance away. Bet's plan for escape had been to join a friend working in an Idaho lumber camp, but she'd promised her mother on her deathbed that she'd go to Uncle Earl's, and she always kept her promises.We can only imagine what Bet expected Uncle Earl to be like, considering her experiences with the adults, especially men, in her brief life, but Earl is not that. A former Navy cook, now working at the small town's diner, he's a giving and gentle soul and the caretaker for the county for three rescued dogs. A recent addition to his home is a very sick red and white beagle that had been removed from a deplorable situation. Bet feels a kinship with the small, frightened dog she names Penny, and it becomes her goal to heal her and become Penny's "person."
The plot covers the summer of 1953, and Bet and Penny's slow but steady recovery as both become a part of their new home and new community, seeing a side of people they had been denied up to this point in their lives. The author's vivid descriptions of the setting drew me in so completely I could almost feel the heat and hear the sounds of that long-ago summer, a time when telephones, television, and cars weren't a part of every household yet. Bet's story was compelling, with plot twists that changed its trajectory in unexpected ways and kept me glued to its pages.I recommend STAY, GIRL to readers of historical fiction, especially those who enjoy coming-of-age stories.
I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy through WOW! Women On Writing Book Tours.