Journal Entry 1 by KathyB25 from Arlington, Texas USA on Friday, January 16, 2009

Fifteen-year-old Mary Fred Anderson, brought up in a fundamentalist sect obsessed with an imminent Apocalypse and the propagation of the name "Fred," is placed in foster care with a very different family. 

Journal Entry 2 by KathyB25 from Arlington, Texas USA on Friday, February 06, 2009

On it's way to Appaloosatb 

Journal Entry 3 by appaloosatb from Rochester, Minnesota USA on Thursday, February 12, 2009

This has arrived safely. Thank you! 

Journal Entry 4 by appaloosatb from Rochester, Minnesota USA on Sunday, December 06, 2009

This is by far one of the best books I've read so far this year. Thanks again for sharing!

Amazon Editorial Review:

Filled with soulful humor and quiet pathos, Abby Bardi's boldly drawn first novel marks the debut of a joyfully talented chronicler of the quest for connection in contemporary life.

Mary Fred Anderson, raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect whose primary obsessions seem to involve an imminent Apocalypse and the propagation of the name "Fred," is hardly your average fifteen-year-old. She has never watched TV, been to a supermarket, or even read much of anything beyond the inscrutable dogma laid out by the prophet Fred. But this is all before Mary Fred's whole world tilts irrevocably on its axis: before her brothers, Fred and Freddie, take sick and pass on to the place the Reverend Thigpen calls "the World Beyond"; before Mama and Papa are escorted from the Fredian Outpost in police vans; and Mary Fred herself is uprooted and placed in foster care with the Cullison family. It is here, at Alice Cullison's suburban home outside Washington, D.C., where everything really changes -- for all parties involved.

Mary Fred's new guardian, Alice, is a large-hearted librarian who, several years after her divorce, can't seem to shake her grief and loneliness. Meanwhile, Alice's daughter Heather, also known as Puffin, buries any hint of her own adolescent loneliness beneath an impenetrable armor of caustic sarcasm, studied apathy, and technicolor hair. And the enigmatic Uncle Roy is Alice's perennially jobless and intensely private brother. As Mary Fred struggles to adjust to the oddities of this alien world, from sordid daytime television and processed food to aromatherapy and transsexuality, she gradually begins to have an unmistakable influence on the lives of her housemates. But when a horrifying act of violence shakes the foundations of Mary Fred's fragile new family, she finds herself forced to confront, painfully, the very nature of the way she was raised.

With a knack for laying bare the absurdities of daily life, Abby Bardi captures, with grace and authority, all the ambivalence and emotional uncertainty at the heart of these quirky characters' awakenings.
 

Journal Entry 5 by appaloosatb at BookObsessed VBB, BookObsessed Swap -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, April 15, 2010

Released 2 yrs ago (4/16/2010 UTC) at BookObsessed VBB, BookObsessed Swap -- Controlled Releases

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Mailing to sarradee from the 'It's Your Turn!' VBB. Enjoy! 

Journal Entry 6 by sarradee from Dallas, Texas USA on Saturday, April 24, 2010

Thanks appa, I'm looking forward to reading this book.