"The Silver Star" by Jeanette Walls

Synopsis:  Liz and "Bean" Holladay's mother has dreams of being a star; she's impetuous and irresponsible and disappears one day, leaving the girls on their own.  The sisters decide to take a bus across the country to Virginia in hopes that their Uncle Tinsley will take them in until their mother returns.  Uncle Tinsley is eccentric, but he is kind and loving and takes the girls in.  Liz and Bean help their uncle care for the house, make friends in town and at school, and learn a bit more about their mother's past.  The girls even get jobs working for Jerry Maddox, a local with a bad reputation.  Ultimately, Liz finds herself in trouble and the sisters are faced with adversity that truly tests them.  

Review:  This book is a quick and easy read (it could easily be classified as a "Young Adult" novel) and would make for a great beach read this summer.  I liked the the book, but did not love it.  Bean is a charming character, reminiscent of Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird," but many of the other characters fall a bit flat.  The book reads more like a memoir, which Walls is well known for, than a fiction book and ends up a mile wide and an inch deep.  This is a book about mothers and daughters, mental illness, bullies, family secrets, abuse, and much more.  It has racial tension, courtroom drama, stories of military heroes, and so, so much more.  It's a sweet tale and I recommend it for mindless entertainment, but it doesn't hold a candle to Walls' previous work.

Spoilers:  I am left with the question of why Jeanette Walls picked the title that she did.  Bean finds out more about her dad from Aunt Al and it was great to learn that he had been such a wonderful man and had even earned the silver star.  I understand that the star became a symbol to Bean of her father, but I am not sure this had enough of an impact on the story to earn its place in the title.  On another note, I really enjoyed the book's ending.  It was predictable through and through and I expected the trial to end in Liz's favor so I was pleased when it did not and even more pleased with Bean's uncle finished Maddox off.