March 25, 2019

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray

Genre/Categories: Contemporary Fiction, African-American Literature, Mothers/Daughters, Sisters, Family Life

My Summary:

Starving for love, stability, and safety…

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls shares the compelling and multilayered story of the three Butler sisters: Althea, Viola, and Lillian. Althea was a teenager when her mother died and the children were faced with living with their unstable and often absent father. As the oldest, Althea shouldered the burden of caring for her younger siblings. As adults, they each deal with their traumatic childhood in different ways. To the shock of the community, Althea and her husband face some serious criminal charges and years in prison. Viola and Lillian rally to care for Althea’s children. The story is told from three perspectives as we learn more about the family secrets and childhood trauma.

My Thoughts:

This Reminds Me Of: The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls has been promoted as An American Marriage meets The Mothers. For me, there were a few similarities that included African-American families and a prison storyline. However, throughout the reading, I thought more about concepts from Just Mercy than the storylines of An American Marriage or The Mothers. In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson reminds us that dysfunctional family history and socio-economic conditions are often contributing factors as young people experiment with making poor choices.

Sisters: Despite different ways of handling the trauma of their childhoods, the siblings pull together the best they can to hold the family together, to offer love, apologies, explanations, and forgiveness, and to provide a safety net for Althea’s teenage girls.

Themes: The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is a sincerely written story of sacrifice, love, the strength of women, broken relationships, hope for healing, second chances, and of girls starving for love, stability, and safety. I definitely felt hope at the story’s end.

A Reviewer’s Dilemma: As a white reader and reviewer, I am conflicted about reviewing this story because I am concerned that I might have missed some important considerations or misstated something. I especially appreciate any feedback on my review from POC. I’d like to include as part of my review a review from an authentic voice: https://afomaumesi.com/review-care-an…

Recommended for readers looking for complex and diverse reads, for fans of multilayered, tragic family dramas, and for book clubs and those looking for a compelling read with many important themes and opportunities for discussion.

*trigger warnings for eating disorders, physical abuse, suicidal thoughts, parents in prison

Thank you to Jaymi at The Orange County Book Club Girl for my gifted copy of The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. 

My Rating: 4 Stars

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls Information Here

About the Author, Anissa Gray

Anissa Gray was born and raised in western Michigan, where her father pastored a Pentecostal church and her mother was a homemaker. She graduated from Western Michigan University and received her Masters in English from New York University. After graduate school, Anissa went on to work as a print reporter at Reuters in Manhattan, covering global financial news. That was followed by a move to Atlanta and the initiation of her career in broadcast journalism at CNN, where she has held roles as writer, editor, and producer, receiving Emmy and duPont awards for contributions to the network’s coverage of major stories.

After more than 20 years as a journalist, Anissa, a lifelong book lover and voracious reader, pursued fiction writing, applying her love of storytelling from the realm of real-life, newsworthy happenings to the events and encounters that shape our lives. Her first novel, The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, will be published in 2019.

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Let’s Discuss!

Do you like complicated family drama?

Have you read An American Marriage or The Mothers?

Is The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls on your TBR?

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Happy Reading Book Buddies!

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

“I love the world of words, where life and literature connect.”
~Denise J Hughes

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones.”
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“I read because books are a form of transportation, of teaching, and of connection! Books take us to places we’ve never been, they teach us about our world, and they help us to understand human experience.”
~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text

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Looking Ahead:

 In the next week or two, watch for reviews of
Beantown Girls by Jane Healey, Inheritance by Dani Shapiro, and Things My Son Needs to Know About the World by Fredrik Backman

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Winter and Spring TBR

I’ll be providing my last update for my Winter TBR as I read the last two selections this week.

Here’s my Spring TBR.

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