The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

The Silver Star is the first fiction novel by Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses. This novel is set in 1970, following two sisters, "Bean" and Liz Holladay. When their flighty mother, Charlotte, takes off to "find herself", Bean and Liz find themselves on a journey to Virginia to live with their Uncle Tinsley, a man they have never before met. In Virginia, Bean and Liz find the kind of stable life they never had with their mother, yet find themselves in a completely different kind of dilemma.

This insomniac's opinion:

Disclaimer: I ADORE Jeannette Walls! Others may peruse People magazine for pictures and news of their favorite musicians and actors. Me, I anxiously await the next novel from my favorite authors and swoon at its arrival at a bookstore near me. So, when I received this advance reader's copy of this new book of Ms. Walls, I actually did a happy dance(Thank you Net Galley and Scribner!). Let me tell you, I was not disappointed!

The characters in this novel were so spot on, I began to wonder if this was another of Ms. Walls fabulous non-fiction books. They simply felt real. I especially loved the small town characters in the small Virginia town that the girls moved to so that they could live with their Uncle Tinsley. I thought that the author did a great job of talking through some of the civil rights concerns of the time, such as segregation, without me feeling that she was telling me about it from a soap box. The only aspect of the novel that I didn't truly love was the ending. I felt that there was still more story to be told.

Worth staying up all night to read?

Yes! A very enjoyable read. This novel will be published on June 11, 2013 and I highly recommend reading it.

Rating: 4 stars

Want to add this to your Goodreads shelf?

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16130291-the-silver-star

Note: I received an advance readers copy of this novel from Net Galley and Scribner Publishing in exchange for an honest review.