A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Hi everyone! Well today I have decided to take a break from my intense Harry Potter marathon to write a quick blog. I am doing this Harry Potter marathon as a sort of lead up to the final Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. By the way, my Harry Potter marathon consists of reading every single Harry Potter book and then watching all of the movies. So far I have gotten through "Goblet of Fire" and am reading, for probably the thousandth time, "Order of the Phoenix" (books four and five respectively if you are not familiar with the series. If that is the case, I highly suggest you sprint to the nearest bookstore and save yourself from this serious literary and culture deprivation. I am being totally serious). Anyways, today I am going to review a book that I read while I was at the beach with my family called "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" written by Betty Smith. And away we go!

Characters: Francie Nolan: fiercely independent/ an avid reader/ desperately wants to finish high school and get into college
Cornelious "Neely" Nolan: Francie's brother/ is Mama's favorite child/ does not want to go to school unlike Francie
Katie Nolan: Francie and Neely's mother/ a hardworking woman who works two jobs to support her family/ has been married to Johnny for over a decade
Johnny Nolan: Francie and Neely's father/ works as a "singing waiter"/ relates more to Francie than Neely
*As a note, this book probably had the greatest amount of characters out of any book I have read. There are a wide variety of characters that could go here, but for simplicity sake I have just included the characters that are truly essential to the story*

The Plot: Francie Nolan has one goal in life: get as much knowledge as possible. She wants to get an education, no matter what it takes. However, that is not so easy when you live in Brooklyn, New York at the turn of the 20th century. Money is so tight in Brooklyn homes, that children are forced to leave school at an early age to support the family and get jobs. Francie's family could only afford for one child to go to school (they needed the other child to earn wages) and against the wishes of both Neely and Francie, Katie picked Neely. Francie however, still really wanted to go to school and would not take no for an answer. She enrolled in summer school and began to study at night to prepare for the college entrance exams. However, Francie begins to lose her idealistic nature as she grows up: the world deals her cruel hand after cruel hand starting with losing her hero, her father, to sickness and his own drunk habits. As her disillusionment grows, Francie begins to question the world around her not only because of how outsiders treat her, but how everyone treats each other because they are from Brooklyn.

What I liked: This was, by far, one of my favorite books that I have read. My mom, who reads my blog every time I have a new post, commented on how obvious it is that I love strong female characters. Francie is another one of those strong female characters, except for at one point which I will get to later. She was stubborn, at times fiercely independent, and had a thirst for knowledge that was very similar to my own. She loved her family and specifically her brother unconditionally, even when her mother treated her second-rate to Neely. I also loved Francie's relationship with her father. Granted, Francie's father was not the most reliable of people and he put a lot of unnecessary strain on the Nolan family but he loved Francie unconditionally. The family dynamic in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" was really the sole focus of the story and I loved the interaction between all of the family members. The family dynamic between Katie and her sisters Sissy and Evy was lovely and they, along with the Nolan family, presented this sharp contrast against the seemingly fragmented families around them. Second, I don't think I have ever read a book that had such rich imagery and detail. I felt like I was actual in Brooklyn, walking the streets with Francie. It was unapologetic, and sometimes harsh, but it offered an unfiltered view of Brooklyn at that time. However, I don't want it to sound like Smith was painting this landscape of a place that was filled with desolation and despair. On the contrary - she was able to pull from the seeming chaos and poverty to create a place that in its own way had beauty too. There is a scene near the end of the book where Francie is marveling over just how much she loves Brooklyn and how she is afraid of how she will see it when she grows up. She is afraid that she will lose the ability to see the beauty in the crooked streets and chaos. This love for a city and love for a place really hit home with me. Cities have this almost magnetic draw, at least for me, and I was able to feel that same love for a place when Smith writes. Some people may think that "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is slow, and in places it is. But these lulls fit in with the story of Francie's life and it allowed the reader to get immersed in the details and immersed in this life in Brooklyn. Finally, the book had a reasonably happy ending which I liked. I was reasonably happy because it was not a "Twilight ending" (meaning that Smith did not choose to end her novel as Stephanie Meyers does with everyone getting exactly everything they ever wanted with no sacrifice and disappointment and a lot of over the top happiness to go around. Can you tell I am not a "Twihard"? I cannot believe I just used that word). Instead, Smith left us with not only a feeling of sadness but a feeling of hope for Francie and the future to come. And really, that is all we can ask for.

What I didn't like: Okay, this part actually drove me crazy. Why in the world would Francie lose her head over a guy (Lee) that she knew for only a week, who was not only leaving the country to go to war, but was also engaged. I don't have a problem with her liking him, but she acted like she was in love with him, completely losing her head. It was also for just a week. Totally out of character. Also, I didn't really understand Katie Nolan's crazy reasoning for why she liked Neely better than Francie. Katie said that she liked Neely better because Francie was "weak" (at least at first) and Neely was exactly like her husband Johnny but she could mold him to be better. She even made Neely go to high school when he did not want to go and refused to allow Francie to go to high school even though she actually wanted to attend. I did not really understand where she was coming from or where her logic was at at all.

Overall: 9 out of 10. I am not taking off points because Francie lost her head, but rather because I didn't always enjoy the Neely-Francie-Katie dynamic. But overall, I absolutely loved this book.