Twelve years ago Hope's mother died in childbirth and her father left town, leaving his newborn daughter in the care of his sister Ruth and his ex-girlfriend Sara Lynn. The two women, who didn't even like each at the time, moved into the same house, along with Sara Lynn's mother, Mamie, and raised Hope together.Raising Hope focuses on the summer before Hope becomes a teenager, although there are many flashbacks that explain how these women came to live together and how they became the people they are. Events during the summer, while not huge and earth-changing, are life-changing to the people involved. Ruth learns about something that will change her relationship with her secret boyfriend. Hope falls in love for the first time, and Sara Lynn finally opens up to a new man in her life. Throughout these events, the characters learn about themselves and each other, and their complicated relationships become even stronger. The first person point-of-view switches between the four main characters, but each voice is so distinct that the reader is never confused about who is talking.Raising Hope is a sweetly sentimental novel that never crosses the line into saccharine melodrama. The characters are a realistic blend of good intentions and self-centered focus, people who truly love each other but still manage to inflict pain on each other with their words and actions.
This is an excellent novel about a 12 y.o. girl who has been raised by her father's sister and his former lover after her mother dies giving birth to her. The girl is named Hope. She is trying to come to terms with who she is, why her father left and was never heard from again. And she really wants to get her period so she's not a little girl anymore. Her aunt and her father's old girlfriend grew up hating each other, the aunt being from the wrong side of the tracks, the old girlfriend being from a wealthy family. They must learn to live together, along with the former girlfriend's mother, as they co-parent Hope. The story is told through the eyes and experiences of Hope, Ruth (her aunt), Sara Lynn (the old girlfriend), and Mamie (Sara Lynn's mother), going back and forth from the present to the past. It weaves a good story and shows the strength of each woman as they build a family based on love and respect.
Do You like book Raising Hope (2006)?
Billie Letts praises "Raising Hope" as "a lovely story." True. I liked the switches between narrators. Hope's 12-year-old angst is well-drawn. Characters are eminently likable. But the basic premise of a father abandoning his baby to the custody of his sister and his former girlfriend doesn't ring true. Nor does the triangle of Hope, her mother, and the tennis pro. Nor the . . . Well, you get the drift. The ending is more of the same: some story strands are resolved in a most unlikely (albeit charming) way. The other strands are left loose in the wind.
—Elaine
