This book opened the doors to other Kaye Gibbon's books for me and I've yet to be disappointed. There are times in this book that you are confused because the emotional detail outweighs the timeline events. Your heart goes out to Ellen, your become angry at the family and the system.

Did not seem authentic to me

If you like The Catcher in the Rye, you will like Ellen Foster. Ellen is a female version of Holden. Brilliant writing.

Sometimes, too rarely, you find a book that just takes your breath away. One that makes all other books seem as if they aren’t books at all, but practice runs. Ellen Foster was that kind of book for me.

Ellen Foster is about a young girl in an abusive home. Her mother overdoses, her alcoholic father alternately takes advantage of her or neglects her completely and she soon becomes a throw-away, wandering from one uncaring relative to another.

This story is one that hit me like a load of concrete. Told in the young main character’s point of view, it was startlingly realistic and painful and haunting. There was something so uncomfortable about reading the story that I often had to put the book aside to wipe my tears away. Watching Ellen’s life unfold is like watching a gruesome car accident—you can’t look away no matter how bad it is. You can’t stop reading although you know the next paragraph will bring you certain heartbreak. And yet, for all that, it is still a story of hope.

This is a book you don’t read so much as experience. In my opinion, Gibbons is one of the top 3 female writers alive today (the others being Jan Karon and Melinda Haynes). All of her books have moved me so deeply but this one was my favorite, if such a word can be applied to this experience. Her prose is so beautiful that it is almost poetic. She takes words and makes them do things I’ve never seen from other authors. This story is told from the point of view of the young Ellen so it is hard to follow and read but that makes the story so much more powerful and painful.

If you’ve never read Kaye Gibbons before, treat yourself to a concert performed by a maestro.

I hated it. It made no sense. Waste of six hours of my life that I will never get back. Summer reading.

So many people love this book, but I just don't get it. This book left me completely unsatisfied. I got to the last page and thought, "Ok, where is the rest of the book?". There are parts of this book that I like, but overall I really just hated it. Don't get me wrong: I am not a reader that needs a "happily ever after" to be satisfied (in fact, I dislike happily ever after books), but this one simply left me feeling cold, flat, and emotionally unattached from the characters that I think I was supposed to love and/or hate.

Ellen Foster is like Scout Finch without the support system of Atticus, Jem, and Calpurnia. She's funny, courageous, level-headed, fair-minded and intelligent. With very little help from anyone, she gets herself out of a very bad situation and into a good one and teaches herself some valuable lessons along the way. I love Ellen Foster.

i like the narration at times but the way this book writes and talks about Black people is so ridiculous. at the end it tries to have Ellen have some major realization of her racial prejudices but the entirety of the book starletta (her Black best friend) remains reduced to an ignorant, silent, and unkempt caricature that feels minstrel-y at worst. i think Ellen even refers to starletta as being hers at one point and that made me feel a bit queasy lol

also, i could not tell when this was set or even that the main character was white for awhile which is wild to me and an issue

Walker Percy referred to the protagonist of the book, Ellen Foster, as a “southern Holden Caulfield” but I think if you compared her to someone more current, it would be Lucy Barton. At her young age, turning 11 in the book, if I remember, she’s carrying the world on her back and trying to forge a future for herself when everyone else either betrays her or just turns their back. However, you not only have affection for Ellen, you have faith in her inventiveness and will to survive in spite of everything against her.

The book starts with Ellen saying how when she was younger, she’d think of ways to kill her father, then work through the plans until they were perfect. Her mother is ill, apparently from a heart condition, but still works when she isn’t hospitalized. Her father is a violent, alcoholic ne’er-do-well, the poster boy for “white trash”, who berates the mother as just lazy, and habitually empties her purse, looking for money so he can go out and party with his lowlife friends. Early on in the book, her mother dies and this is when we’re introduced to that side of the family, somewhat snobbish, who considered that her mother married below her. However, Ellen is left to survive the best she can with her father.

Her best friend is Starletta, a black girl in her class at school, and here Ellen is torn at times between the way she feels and the racism around her. This also comes out in her being forced to survive with her father, and the feelings he generates by not only being an alcoholic but for consorting with Negroes. (This last is put less delicately in the book; the book seems to be placed in the South of the 1960’s.) Starletta’s family treats her almost as one of their own but not quite, knowing the rules they have to live under.

These two threads are actually Ellen’s memories of the past because throughout the book, Ellen also refers to her “new mother”, someone kind who obviously has no relation to her father or relatives but it isn’t clear until the final chapters how this all fits in – but fit in it does because the book is destined towards a happy ending. It’s hard not to love Ellen, irrepressible, persistent and creative in her desire to find a way to persevere, despite the hand she’s been dealt. An inspiring book for me!

Mixed. Very good in parts, and in other ways it just didn't all hold together.

I didn't fall in love with the main character, Ellen, because despite her matter-of-fact narration and perspective on her own tormented childhood, she didn't feel like a real person to me. She had a voice I couldn't imagine a real 11 year old using, even one who had gone through what Ellen had. And at times she seemed far too adult to be plausible, while at others she seemed strangely naive (not knowing her new mama's last name wasn't "Foster," even after living with her?) She just didn't feel fully formed.

The plot itself felt uneven, too, though strong overall. At times it was very simple and moving, while at other times it didn't quite capture me. The book talks a lot about race--the book is mainly about Ellen's self-reliance through her trials and tribulations, but often the only postive family life she sees comes from black people. In the end, Ellen has a revelation about the way she sees black people that felt like a not entirely satisfying conclusion--why is this suddenly the main emphasis, I wondered?

This sort of revelatory memoir-style telling of bad childhoods, foster children, abuse & neglect and parental alcoholism and so on--it's sort of a red-hot genre these days, but in 1987 (as far as I know), when Gibbons wrote this, it was fairly new. I can't help but wonder if part of its critical acclaim came from the fact that such books were uncommon. And now, it's common... And so, sad as this may be, I wonder what a story like Ellen's has to offer us. We know such suffering exists. It's a part of everyday life. And to write a great novel about everyday life, you have to be a truly great writer. Gibbons is just a good writer.

All in all, the book is sweet despite the bleakness, and worth reading. Besides, it's so short. I mean, I did read it in a day, and I love being able to do that, completely immerse myself in a story. It just didn't change my life or anything.

A bizarre story but strangely satisfying. Probably not everyone's cup of tea
but I really like Kaye Gibbons' writing style. If you want to sample her work, I would recommend this one.

In questo libro Kaye Gibbons racconta di sé stessa, di una infanzia fatta unicamente di dolore, morti e tragedie...
Un racconto corto ma densissimo di un vissuto di tristezza e solitudine, di odio e abbandono...
Sola, senza più nessuno, riceverà il dono più grande che una bimba possa ricevere..... L'amore di una nuova mamma. Non è alla fin fine, l' amore più bello e assoluto che ogni uomo, sin dalla nascita e sino alla morte desidera e chiama!?