Lucile (Lottie) Garrett has a tough life. Motherless, and now homeless, she and her father live in the West in the 1930’s–a tough time period for anyone to live through, but especially rough for a thirteen-year-old girl with no mother. Befriended by a drifter, they follow him to Texas, figuring they have nothing left to lose. Lucile and her father have no idea what trouble might await them though, and they discover the hard way that trusting this new-found friend might have been a deadly mistake.
I typically don’t select books set in the early 1900’s–it is a time period that holds little interest for me. However, I chose Hard Twisted because it looked intriguing and mysterious, and like a good change of pace for me. I found myself sympathizing with Lucile in the predicaments she gets herself into. She is such an innocent character, but because of the people she associates with, she becomes slightly guilty as the story goes on.
This book would have great appeal to mystery and western readers. Although I am neither of those particularly, I enjoyed the fast-paced reading this novel offered. It was a little dense at times, causing me to focus a little deeper on what I was reading, but it left me with some questions to ponder, which can be a nice quality in a book…or a haunting one.
This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Bloomsbury USA
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 6 religious exclamations; 25 mild obscenities; 1 religious profanity; 4 derogatory names; 5 anatomical terms; 5 F-word derivatives
Violence/Gore: A group of men fight chickens, blood is mentioned and a chicken dies; a man hits a teenaged girl; a middle-aged man is verbally abusive to his teenaged fiancee; a man is physically abusive to his teenaged fiancee; a character murders two people, blood is mentioned but not overly descriptive.
Sex/Nudity: A man and teenaged girl have sex several times before marriage, brief scenes and non-detailed; a man attempts to rape a teenaged girl, brief scene and non-detailed; a man and woman kiss several times; there is one non-detailed scene of sexual innuendo and nudity between a man and wife
Mature Subject Matter:
Rape, murder, abandonment.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Adults drink; adults smoke; teen girl smokes a cigarette.
