A Girl Named Zippy

This is the book we are reading this month in our non-Enrichment book club. A Girl Named Zippy is a memoir written by Haven Kimmel. It is the story of her childhood, growing up poor in a small Indiana town during the late sixties/early seventies.

I'm not a huge fan of memoirs, basically because I think they are too good to be true. (Even Haven Kimmel herself doesn't deny that.) Yet, it is classified as non-fiction and is found in the library amongst the biographies. Maybe I just don't have a very good memory or she has an amazing one to remember conversations, facial expressions, and emotions from when she was age 5!

I got a little ADD reading this book. The book is mostly a random collection of experiences. One chapter will be a kindergarten chapter, then 4th grade, and then back to kindergarten again. I need to feel like I'm getting somewhere with a book. I felt like I was sinking in a quagmire of plotlessness. For this reason, I prefer adult memoirs that cover an extended period of time since there is usually more plot and the details are more likely to be accurately remembered.

Having said all that, I loved Haven Kimmel's sharp and witty writing style. I even laughed out loud a few times. I'm tempted to try her fiction series, which begins with The Solace of Leaving Early, since I might do better with a book that proclaims itself as fiction and hopefully has a plot.