"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy."

One of the best opening lines for a book I have ever read. Knocked me off my center of gravity right away, and I was left wondering what kind of evil little girl was I going to be reading about. With an opener like that you might also think this book was somber and hopeless. Somber...Sometimes, hopeless...NO. It turned out to be filled with hilarious laugh-out-loud moments.

I was right about one thing. There is plenty of evil in this book, but Ellen isn't the source of it. Her family is filled to the brim with nastiness at both ends of her genetic pool. Ellen lets the reader in on how she is dealt with by her family and, in turn, how she deals with them.

Ellen has to grow up a lot in these 126 pages, and Gibbons has written what I consider to be a perfect novella. How she managed to tell such a rich and wonderful coming of age tale in so few words, is truly amazing.

This was my first 5 star of 2014 and I highly recommend it to everyone.

A heart-breaking story of triumph over adversity. A young girl from an abusive family dreams of being part of the Foster family she sees in church on Sundays ... the kids are all clean and their mother is polite and kind. So she signs her name "Ellen Foster" in hopes of making her dream come true.

3.5

I bought this book around 2006-2009 and it was just laying there on my book stack. I just read 2-3 pages and lost interest. After several years, I found this book on my storage and put it out to try if it can capture my interest now. Thank goodness that I gave this book a chance because I can't put it down once I start to read it. I was just busy so it was hard for me to finish reading it right away.

Ellen is not your conventional type of kid because she thinks and speaks in a manner that is not like her age. I really find her story very interesting from what happened to her mom's overdosed until she finally found her adoptive mother.

I was not surprised that this book has a fair rating here and that there are several reviews who didn't find this book to their liking. The way it was written was not that easy to understand due to the way how Ellen tells her story. Ellen's way of speaking is sort of unintelligible that's why I lost interest then. But who could have thought that this incomprehensible way of Ellen could make the book unique and quite engaging to read.

Wow. I felt as if I was reading another language. It is written in 'southern drawl' which makes this Yankee have to stop and think about what is written, or read out loud in a southern accent. TOUGH read.

Oh my gosh, what a touching wonderful story. As others have said in their reviews I just wanted to scoop up Ellen and have her come live at my house. Her new mama gave her all the love she so craved and needed. I loved every page.

I read this book years ago and for some time I offered it on the rare occasions that a student could not read The Bluest Eye. It is not remotely as strong as The Bluest Eye, but it does what it does well enough. Some of the themes and many of the events are shared with Morrison's short novel, but Gibbons is euphemistic and so readers may choose to be sheltered from the events.

Incredibly written and heart-wrenching; beginning to end.

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure it out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy. I did not go to the funeral but I imagined how bad the preacher must have felt to put my daddy in the same ground with good people born dead who get to be angels. And beside my mama. They shut the lid down hard on his and nail it nail it with the strongest nails. I say do all you can to keep it shut and him in it always.

I had not planned to cry over him when he died. I had practiced it so many times... My mama's mama was looking into my eyes for a reason to slap me again. Go ahead and cry for your damn daddy she got in my face and said to me. Just make sure you cry more than you did for your mama. Why did she say that? I wondered and reached up to catch a tear I felt had just rolled over my eye ledge. But she grabbed my shaking hand with her hand shaking and said to let that be the last tear I ever shed."

Ellen Foster es una adolescente que cuenta cómo fue su vida hasta que llegó a la casa de acogida en la que reside en el presente.
La muerte de su madre, su padre alcohólico y maltratador, las habladurías de un lugar donde todos se conocen, el clasismo y el racismo. Todo ello suma un conjunto de vivencias que moldean un carácter, y Ellen lo hace con personalidad y arrojo, aprendiendo a palos pero sacando valor y positivismo, madurando a su propio criterio.

Las circunstancias externas siempre vienen impuestas, pero es la manera de afrontarlas lo que podemos elegir.

Ellen siempre lleva su microscopio con ella, a todos los lugares donde ha de vivir. A través de ese aparato se olvidan todos los adornos, las imposiciones e incluso las creencias. Y queda únicamente la esencia.
Creo que sin duda esta es la gran enseñanza que deja esta pequeña historia.

Un libro sin grandes alardes, pero tengo la impresión de que se quedará en el recuerdo mucho más tiempo del que pueda pensar.

This is fantastic—I’m making it an honorary Best Book of the Year. Eleven-year-old Ellen narrates, in alternating strands, the total breakdown of her biological family (dead mother; father alcoholic and neglectful when not actively dangerous) and the way in which, after many false starts with various appalling extended family members, she comes to live with a new, kind and loving foster mother. It’s very funny—Ellen expresses herself idiosyncratically, and with such confidence—and also, obviously, very sad. I also love the way Ellen moves from repeating racist received ideas about their Black neighbours, who care for her in moments of great need, to owning and embracing her friendship with their daughter Starletta. Some readers have seen this about-face as too quick, but I think it works really well, reflecting Ellen’s maturer understanding of love, security, and privilege. Apparently this has been filmed; I’d love to see it on a screen. I’ve got another Gibbons novel to read and can’t wait now. Source: bought secondhand from Daedalus Books in Charlottesville

3.5 I loved this book pretty much from the first sentence, but it was this sentence that entrenched Ellen in my heart. ""What did you expect? Marry trash and see what comes of you. I could have told anybody." No young child should ever have the wisdom or the knowledge to say such a thing, and this perfectly explains how her life had been with her drunken father and sick mother.

This novel is in turn heartbreaking and amusing. Some of the things she says, the way she views things through her own special lens, filtered by her experiences alone. an amazingly short book but a powerful one.

This is overrated. I don’t get the fuss.