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Summary: A touching story
Review: A touching story with wonderful humor. I had never heard of this book before and just recently read it for a book club. I really enjoyed it. Ellen is a strong, yet sensitive girl who wants to get away from her abusive, alcoholic father. After her mother dies, she realizes she must get out of the house and ends up with relatives that are as cold as ice. Even though the story is short page-wise, there is a lot of important, heartwarming and heartwrenching content. I felt the broken grammar was an important addition to the story as it allowed you to fully enter Ellen's world and invision the lifestyle around her.I also liked the ending which I won't ruin for everyone! I loved this book!
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Summary: Beautiful and touching personal account of finding love
Review: Ellen Foster: a small child that any mature adult can relate to - cry with, yell with, and ultimetly love with. Ellen Foster tells the sad story of a torn child from a nightmarish family, and how she struggles to free herself from it's haunting binds. A must read!
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Summary: a waste of time
Review: when i received this book from a friend telling me that this book would be great and would be interesting to read. But once i saw the cover telling me that it was part of the oprah book club, i was like, "oy! this book will stink" I never had high expectations of this novel. I was disturbed hearing ellen's insensitive feelings toward her parents and family. Also, the way kaye gibbons wrote the book was different from other books that i have read, but i hated the fact that there were no commas or quotation marks. It was tough to concentrate while reading because the novel was so anti-climatic and uninteresting. The only aspect of the book that i enjoyed was the fact that it consisted of only 126 pages so i could start a new book as soon as possible.
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Summary: THIS BOOK IS THE FINEST BOOK I HAVE READ SINCE.....
Review: Ellen Foster was the finest book I have read in a very long time. From someone switching from Sweet Valley High and Fear Street series novels, this book was a delicious read! Many people might have trouble with the language but the language is SUPPOSED to be colloquial! I mean, the girl gets all her education mainly from what she sees and experiences. I am only a teenager and Kaye Gibbons has become my new favorite author. Even though I was not abused, I identified totally to Ellen's situations and problems. The basic thing of the novel is about how a child feels like she is swimming in a flood of problems, trying really hard not to drown. It made me extremely happy when I saw her rise to the top of the ocean. Ellen Foster was a good read and a powerful read and I would recommend it to ANY teenager who needs a book to identify with that has nothing to do with sexual love.
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Summary: Great Book!
Review: I thought this was a great book. I loved the first person narrative. Even though Ellen was only 11 years old, I could understand why she seemed older due to the things she had to go through in her life. The only thing I could not understand was how Starletta could be the most important person to her as she described in the end of the book. Starletta was not given enough credit or description in the entire body of the story to warrant Ellen's devotion to her in the end of the book. Overall, I was pleased with the book and look forward to reading another book by Kaye Gibbons.
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Summary: Less Than I Expected
Review: After hearing all the praise regarding this book from the other reviewers, I thought I'd add a few warnings to those of you thinking of devoting your valuable time to it.--Not much as far as plot goes, and although I liked some of the supporting characters I didn't particularly find Ellen very interesting or well-delveloped. She thinks like a 40 year old and talks like a 4 year old--not what I find realistic for someone who is supposed to be about 11. No, I did not grow up poor or abused or with bad language skills (which is something you must also suffer through during most of this book, since the book is written from the main character's point of view), so maybe I can't identify. Overall, I guess it doen't really take that long to read, but I kind of wish that I hadn't taken the time.
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Summary: extremely engaging book
Review: I thought that this book was very original and wonderful. I flew through it. One of her best.
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Summary: overrated
Review: I thought this book was going to be very special due to incredible praise on the jacket from prominent southern writers (comparing the protagonist to Huck Finn!!!) but the book falls far short of its billing. It was OK, nothing great. I probably would have liked it better had my expectations not been so ludicrously raised by publicity...
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Summary: why the sudden interest?
Review: I read this book nearly 10 years ago and found it to be unremarkable...Now because Oprah's read it, the rest of the world finds it remarkable?
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Summary: I liked this but¿
Review: I was hoping for more of a plot; a little more excitement. This book is perfect for a nice breezy summer day, outside sipping lemonade. Other than that, I found the character Ellen Foster to be unreal. The people in her life seemed more believeable than she was.
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