Books week of April 12
“Mary Jane”
By Jessica Anya Blau
Perfect for lovers of Daisy Jones and the Six, Mary Jane follows the life of a fourteen-year-old girl in the 1970s called Mary Jane. She can be described as the perfect daughter. She is quiet, follows the rules, attends church and isn’t rebellious. Her mom gets her as job as a summer nanny for who she believes to be a respectable psychiatrist. However, the doctor and his wife are far from her mother’s expectations. They keep their home a mess and they act nothing like Mary Jane and her family. Their way of life shocks Mary Jane because they open her eyes to the world outside of the sheltered one created by her parents. Adding to the shock, the doctor moves his washed-up rock star patient into his house. Will Mary Jane still be the sheltered good girl after the summer?
This book is perfect for readers who love historical fiction, Fleetwood Mac and the 1970s. This story is based on what happens when someone experiences culture shock. The question is: Do people change because of the new experiences or do they remain the same?
“The Kitchen House”
By Kathleen Grissom
Near the end of the 1700s, Lavinia, an Irish orphan, is brought to a tobacco plantation to stay in the kitchen house with Belle. Belle is the illegitimate daughter of the master and his former servant and is promised her freedom papers any day. While Lavinia is being taught all the duties that the kitchen house servants perform for the big house, she is becoming close with her new family. They adopt her as their own because love is scarce in their world. As the years go on, Lavinia is trusted with more and more responsibility in the big house. One being taking care of the master’s wife, who became addicted to opium when her daughter died in a horrible accident. Their only other living child was Marshall, who would one day inherit the plantation. The slaves loved Marshall as a boy, but as he got older, he got meaner. As the woman of the big house now, Lavinia tries to be the buffer between Marshall and the kitchen house slaves. But when you are fighting addictions, jealousies and hatred that runs deep, the odds are against you.
