THE SMELLS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES by Bonnie-Sue Hicthcock.

I don't buy books...I'm a library rat. But if I love a book, I want a copy...and I usually buy copies for friends and family, too. So I lied...I DO buy books. I also buy books if I KNOW that I love the author and/or it's a series I love & have to have ALL of them! This author and her books will be THAT kind of buying I will be doing!!! 

I did the ugly but good cry SO many times in this book. (I tweeted Bonnie-Sue that I was crying so much I had to finally go take my eye make-up off.) I read it in a little over a day. I started it one night and finished it the next day.

I love a writer that makes me think, "how does she do this...how does she have this life experience that makes her so wise?"

Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock shows us what it is like to live in 1970 Alaska through the eyes of many characters, four in particular. It's a small fishing town where everyone is poor, just trying to survive. We weep and cheer for these people because Bonnie-Sue makes us feel like we know them, inside and out. And, boy, are we glad we do!

I judge a book on how quickly I start reading it aloud to my husband. "George...listen to this". Here's what I read to him, p. 13 & 14.

It was the tutu daddy had bought me Outside. You couldn't get a tutu like this in Fairbanks and I don't think Gran knew that it was special, or she never would've let me have something the other girls didn't. I was so excited, and as I came up to the studio, I remember another girl and her mom going inside, too. Alyce was wearing a black leotard and pink tights. I could tell she was jealous, eyeing my tutu as she held open the door let me in, and her mother said, "You have the prettiest long hair I've ever seen."
"I know. I'm pretty all over," I said to her without a second thought.
Alyce's mother smiled at me, but then her face changed quickly as Gran's fingers gripped me by the arm and yanked me inside. I didn't even have time to wonder what I'd said that was wrong. Gran marched me into the bathroom, and said through gritted teeth, "Oh, you think you're something special, do you?"
She pulled a huge pair of orange-handled scissors out of her bag, as if she carried them around waiting for moment just like this. They looked like a bird with a silver metal beak. And they were loud. I can still hear the sound of my hair being chopped off with just a few mad snaps of the bird's jaws.