(this is the image cover I have & I like it better than the hardcover image)
From Amazon:
Set on Vancouver Island, Celona’s compelling first novel opens with a desperate young mother abandoning her newborn girl on the front steps of the Victoria YMCA. Passed back and forth, cradled in one set of arms then another, the child is first granted the name Shandi, then Samantha, and later, Shannon. One foster mother rewards Shannon with a cube of cheese if she manages to sit still, but the restless three-year-old is more often met by abuse and eventually banished to live with another family. At age five, Shannon is adopted by Miranda, a single mother whose only expectations of her daughter are fairness, kindness, and respect. While Shannon thrives living in this caring household, she struggles to reconcile the pain of her unknown past. Humorously self-deprecating (I’m not hideous, but I’m definitely a cross between Shirley Temple and a pug), teenage Shannon embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery. This is at once a moving coming-of-age story full of fresh starts, a haunting family story full of heavy disappointments, and an extraordinarily quiet story full of hope. --Miriam Tuliao --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
I became interested in this novel when the author, Marjorie Celona, read an excerpt at the Center for Fiction. I don't know what it is, but I tend to tune out people when they read from books, etc. I am definitely a visual learner. When I watch movies, even, I must have subtitles if it is an option. Something just doesn't click when I listen to words. When I listen to music, I don't even bother to hear the lyrics. I am diverging.
So when Celona was reading her excerpt, straight at the beginning, my ears figuratively perked up (i say figuratively b/c I really don't think my ears can move by themselves at all. i'm trying right now. it's not happening.) She decided to read from the prologue & it is so well-written. Just grabs my attention without feeling too needy for it. She writes about the letter Y from its sound to its shape to how it works in grammar, and there is one part that at the time, I couldn't get. She writes, "Upside-down peace sign," and it was like I was riding a smooth ride with all her descriptions of the letter Y and then I hit a pothole with this description because I immediately retorted (in my head of course) that Y is a peace sign, upside-right (I don't know if that's a real phrase, but it is now.) I kept imaging a peace sign as ✌. I didn't realize it until I was possibly a third or more into the book that she meant ☮. Duh..
Anywho, the book. Celona really does deserve the praise she's been getting. I'm sure there's a term for this, but her timeline goes all over the place like going to the present, then jumping not only to the past, but the past of another character. To someone who has a not so great time following things when she reads, it's amazing that Celona has made her able to not only follow, but remember another character's story from a few chapters before.
Aside from the mechanics, the plot and characters are so interesting and refreshingly different, yet real. I don't know how to describe it/them without using all the words that most praising critiques use that kind of de-credit a story's uniqueness, but just imagine that you have just read some grand words combined together to say that Celona makes an intriguing plot & characters.
I suppose this isn't really a great review, but when I feel passionate about something, I want to share it to get others to see how great something is. So I hope you will take what little I have been able to share in review of Y, and read the novel.