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Book Review of A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
Minehava avatar reviewed on + 819 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4


I found the book sad with an undercurrent of bitterness. Here was a dysfunctional family with a father who drank too much, gambled away his wife's engagement and wedding rings and evidently keeps his family in a state of poverty and a mother who appears chronically depressed and traumatizes a little girl by seriously telling her that she was not theirs but gotten from the gypsies. The child herself was resilient and is obviously able to laugh at the events and trials of her childhood, but I found them sad rather than funny. The book was depressing, with very little true humor.
I have read about baby pigs being thrown to dogs, horses dying from eating barbed wire fence, rabbits being hatcheted, a chicken being eaten by a dog, dogs dying painful deaths in a number of horrendous ways, and a woman who, after death, was nibbled on by her pet cats. I have heard about the dirty, retarded, dysfunctional people of this town. Everyone appears to be either fat or filthy. I can find no redeeming value in this book. I cannot imagine finding anything funny about this book, unless one has such low self-esteem, that they enjoy laughing about people more decadent than themselves. Sorry, but pass on this one!