KATE'S RING

A Canadian girl endures hardship and struggles in her 14th year.

Kate’s the oldest of six children in a Catholic family living
in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 1925. Ever since her mother came down with
tuberculosis a year ago, her father’s been drinking the family into ruin. When
he loses his job as a bakery delivery driver, the family relocates to his
parents’ remote farm, then returns as her mother’s health worsens. And then
another catastrophe strikes. Kate tries to keep charge of her siblings, but
eventually they’re farmed out to other family members, and Kate’s father sells
the titular ring, which was her mother’s. Much happens, and the characters move
around a lot, but they never really come to life—Kate’s brothers in particular
seem interchangeable—and a lot of the emotion in the story feels
forced. Though the action is told from Kate’s first-person perspective,
readers never fully understand what she most deeply wants, or why, and while
the setting is carefully drawn, it feels more like a memory than a lived-in
place. Kate’s voice is appropriately antique: Her mother’s illness is “consumption,”
she has a “pal” named Grace, and she is mindful of “proper” behavior. All
characters adhere to a white default.

Bleak and, unfortunately, not particularly
compelling. (Historical fiction. 10-12)