I read this book as part of my residency book club pick of the month. I love my residency book club! It is filled with people I enjoy spending time with and miss acutely, now that I am no longer a resident.
This story is of Ruthie a Mi’kmaq girl who is taken as a child on the blueberry fields of Maine, and the effect it has on her and her family, both the one she left behind and the one she has been forced to join.
I did not enjoy this book very much. Though it was captivating, the subject matter made me furious for most of the time I read it, which I guess is a good thing, because it means it was written well enough for me to sink deep into the story and interact with it emotionally.
Spoilers ahead…
On the subject of Ruthie’s ‘abductive’mother, I can’t help but dislike her. Though I cannot understand what she went through, the deliberate and pervasive act of taking someone else’s child, of lying to her for several years, of depriving another person of joy just because you don’t have it, is almost unforgivable. I say almost because I am a Christian, and I know my father would want me to forgive, no matter the sin, but I don’t think I could forgive without his grace and mercy, I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own.
Through out her childhood, Ruthie knows something is missing and she asks repeatedly, innocently for an explanation. The way her ‘family’ handles it, is to gaslight her. I think that the woman who took Ruthie was selfish to do that. That was not love, but self centeredness.
The author showed Ruthie’s biological mother in the opposite light. You could say that it was because of the other children she had to care for that she decided to embrace life even after loosing her children, I choose to see it as in spite of the children she lost, she decided to live.
That brings me to the husband and sister of Ruthie’s abductor and their complacency in her wrong doing. This one is a grey area for me. Though I cannot fathom the loss and hardship I would have to endure that could lead me in my right mind to steal someone else’s child, I have often thought about my family and how I would feel if they did something I found despicable.
Would I choose to look the other way to prevent them from receiving punishment?
Would I report them to the authorities?
Would I estrange myself from them?
I cannot fathom not loving them and supporting them, and yet, there are things, bad things that people get away with because their family cannot bring themselves to hurt them, so they let them hurt others.
Overall, this was a thought provoking book.
Major Spoiler alert!!!
The most satisfying part of the story, for me was when Ruthie found her way back home and the way her family embraced her when she did!
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Moyo Laditan 