The Star That Always Stays

Oh, Norvia. 

I really got sucked into this book and finished the whole thing in one day, constantly going back to it instead of picking up one of my other genres, which is unusual for me. 

This is a semi-fiction historical story set in 1914 with flashbacks to a few years earlier. The characters are the author's ancestors, though I'm not sure how much of what happened is real and how much is fiction. I had no idea this was partially based on real people until the end of the book and then I was incensed because she doesn't tell you what happened to anyone! WTF. Rude. I wanna know. 

So Norvia's mother's side of the family is all French and Native American mixed. Some were even Acadian. Norvia's dad is this Swedish dick who used to be rich and constantly does shit like gamble and take risky jobs on boats to make money, always trying to regain his former wealth but he never will. He's pretty racist, so I have no idea how he ever hooked up with Norvia's mom. He seemed to really love her once, but then his attitude towards his children of "Why do you need school? You're Indian. You'll never get a good job." makes zero sense. He and the mom end up divorcing for good reason. 

Now this is 1914. Divorce was really looked down upon by all these asshole women in town who apparently think it's better to be unhappy and abused than to be divorced. So Norvia's mom not only carries the divorce stigma, but then she gets remarried and it spreads to everyone in the family. 

Norvia is still dealing with the death of her beloved grandfather and her family moving from her home on Beaver Island to a city that I can't remember the damn name of but I'm too lazy to go get the book. So now her mother springs this marriage on the family. They've never met the guy and they haven't been seeing each other long at all, but they're getting married in a couple weeks. The kids are predictably not thrilled. 

Everyone ends up moving into the guy's big house, where he lives with his 13-year-old son, who is too sickly to attend school but very intelligent. The guy also has two older daughters. One lives elsewhere and is never in the book. The other is awesome. 

Mr. Ward and Vernon, Norvia's new stepfather and stepbrother, are actually excellent. Mr. Ward is right off the bat, though it takes Norvia a while to warm to him. Vernon takes longer, just like Norvia does, but he's a pretty cool character. 

So Norvia's family doesn't have to worry about money anymore and she can have books! Mr. Ward gives her all these books to read, like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, etc. They play a fairly prominent role in the story, as Norvia is determined to be a heroine like her favorite characters. 

The descriptions of this book make it seem like hiding her heritage and pretending to be white is the primary focus of the plot. It isn't. Norvia isn't happy she has to hide who she is, but it's the divorce she actually hopes to hide from the two boys in her life, because that is what's causing her to be a pariah at school. The real focus of the book is simply that Norvia has to navigate what comes with changes in life and figure out how to be her true self. Changes with family, friends, meeting boys, dealing with her estranged father, an unwelcome surprise from her oldest brother, her new stepsister is pregnant, etc. 

Norvia feels like a classic character. Like Anne or one of the other girls she reads about. She isn't perfect. There were times when I was pretty annoyed by her. But she's loveable. Her characterization is excellent and I loved pretty much everyone else in the book, too. 

What I didn't love is how the divorce played such a huge role in Norvia's life, yet her mother never once sits down with her and goes over all the issues that came about because of the divorce and remarriage. Her stepdad loses a position at church and it's just zoomed right over. Norvia's abandoned by her once best friend and that's never dealt with. All these problems arise but aren't often fully addressed and resolved. 

I wasn't a fan of the flashback chapters. They were interesting but also tended to pop up in the middle of the action and I'd be annoyed by their presence because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the present time. 

Norvia ends up being an excellent character and I loved her and her family. She managed to get a lot of character development, but really could have used some actual focus on the resolution or at least recognition of issues. It's a good book despite that, but it would have been an amazing book if the author had gone that one step further.