I'm glad to have read Bastard Out of Carolina, but I can't say I enjoyed it. The story was an important one in the early 1990s but maybe not as essential today as many authors (including myself) write about child abuse in all its forms. And yet, I know there are some people who will read this book and see their own story, grateful to learn they are not alone. 

As a semi-autographical book, Allison captures growing up in Greenville County, South Carolina, a place mostly known as home to a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard-drinking men. Told through the eyes of Ruth Anne Boatwright, a.k.a. "Bone," Bastard Out of Carolina unapologetically chronicles her abuse at the hands of her stepfather Daddy Glen, and her mother's apparent ability to close her eyes to much of it. The telling is surprisingly raw and visceral.

Allison is a talented writer, making Bone leap off the page. She is especially good at capturing the self-loathing and sometimes self-destructive imagination and behaviors of abused children. The graphic nature, frequent masturbation, and often violent passages resulted in the book being banned. But as is often the case, banning books is the surest way to ensure they are more widely read. 

While the book does an excellent job exploring themes of gender expectations, class, poverty, and family, it doesn't ground itself as well to a clear plot beyond survival. Maybe that's enough. But for me, it meanders too much too often.