Title: Providence
Author: Lisa
Colozza Cocca
Publisher: Merit
Press
Publication Date: March
18, 2014
Genres: YA,
Contemporary
Reviewed by: Angie
Edwards
Source: Received
from Publisher via NetGalley
My rating: 3/5
SUMMARY
The eldest of ten children on a dirt-poor farm,
Becky trudges through life as a full-time babysitter, trying to avoid her
father's periodic violent rages. When the family's barn burns down, her father
lays the blame on Becky, and her own mother tells her to run for it. Run she
does, hopping into an empty freight car. There, in a duffel bag, Becky finds an
abandoned baby girl, only hours old. After years of tending to her siblings,
sixteen-year-old Becky knows just what a baby needs. This baby needs a mother.
With no mother around, Becky decides, at least temporarily, this baby needs
her. When Becky hops off the train in a small Georgia town, it's with baby
"Georgia" in her arms. When she meets Rosie, an eccentric thrift-shop
owner, who comes to value and love Becky as no one ever has, Becky rashly
claims the baby as her own. Not everyone in town is as welcoming as Rosie,
though. Many suspect Becky and her baby are not what they seem. Among the
doubters is a beautiful, reclusive woman with her own terrible loss and a long
history with Rosie. As Becky's life becomes entangled with the lives of the
people in town, including a handsome boy who suspects Becky is hiding something
from her past, she finds her secrets more difficult to keep. Becky should grab
the baby and run, but her newfound home and job with Rosie have given Becky the
family she's never known. Despite her guilt over leaving her mother alone, she
is happy for the first time. But it's a happiness not meant to last. When the
truth comes out, Becky has the biggest decision of her life to make. Should she
run away again? Should she stay--and fight? Or lie? What does the future hold
for Becky and Georgia? With a greatness of heart and a stubborn insistence on
hope found in few novels of any genre, "Providence" proves that home
is where you find it, love is an active verb, and family is more than just a
word.
REVIEW
My
opinion on this light novel varied throughout, and so also my final rating. I
would’ve originally gone with a four-star rating, but the last twenty-five
percent of the story was incredibly frustrating, and I couldn’t wait for it to
end. I finally decided to go with a three-star rating for various reasons.
Still, I enjoyed Providence, and I’m
glad I took a chance on it.
First
of all, the entire concept of a seventeen-year-old runaway coincidentally
discovering an abandoned days-old infant in a train cart on the exact same day
she decides to run away from home, didn’t sit well with me. My disbelief didn’t
end there though. As a mother of two boys I find it difficult to get my mind
around the idea that said seventeen-year-old runaway could raise an abandoned
infant with the same amount of patience, tolerance, and understanding which few
first-time mothers possess and which can only be learned through experience.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I just didn’t find it plausible. She claims
to have the necessary experience taking responsibility for a newborn as she has
helped her mother raise nine of her siblings, yet she makes formula for the
baby with cold, unsterilized tap water? And the baby doesn’t get sick nor has
any stomach cramps? Sorry dude, but I’m not falling for that. I could believe
that Becky loved the baby with her entire heart, but again, there’s no way she
could have the patience displayed by her in this story for a child which isn’t
hers.
Apparently
she kept an eye on the papers to see if anyone reported a missing baby, but why
didn’t she go to the police? Understandably she doesn’t want them to find out
she ran away from home, and of course I can accept that. But where it got a
little ridiculous for me is when Rose, when she is finally told the truth, just
accepts it, asks no questions, and doesn’t really want to hear any more about
where Becky and the baby comes from. When people in town asks questions about
Becky and the baby, you know, the ones who doesn’t blindly accept a young girl
with a baby that looks nothing like her and who keeps secrets about her past,
Rose shushes them and tells them not to ask any questions. The cherry on the
cake for me was how easily Becky’s family accepted that she ran away from home,
and then tells her never to come back (in a letter). I understand her father
would never ever win the father of the year award, but did her mother really
accept her disappearance so easily? Aren’t her siblings missing her? How can
anyone not be looking for her? Doesn’t she have any other family or friends?
Though all this didn’t really distract me from enjoying the story, these
questions were constantly going through my mind.
I liked
most of the characters, and I’d love to have someone as accepting as Rosie in
my life. Who wouldn’t? She turns a blind eye to practically everything! For an
eighty-eight-year-old she’s quite lively and full of energy. That was another
thing I didn’t always find plausible, but it was the least of my concerns. I
liked her character very much and left it at that. In stark contrast, I liked
Becky’s character less and less. By the end I really couldn’t wait to get away
from her. The three things that really annoyed me about her character,
especially from the middle to the conclusion of the book, were her passiveness,
aloofness, and how she pushed the people who wanted to help her or who wanted
to be friends, away from her. Take Lydia for instance. Lydia is unbelievably
pushy and harsh, and generally not a likeable character. But where I didn’t
like her much in the first seventy-five percent of the book, she redeems
herself magnificently in the last twenty-five percent or so.
What I
did enjoy about Providence, and which
made it bearable to read from start to end, was the close bond that formed
between Rosie and Becky. Like I said before, Rosie is a phenomenal character
and her faith in people is unequaled. It’s hard to believe her granddaughter
wants almost nothing to do with her. I also liked how Becky contributed in
breathing new life into the small town that became her and baby Georgia’s new
home.
The
romance between John and Becky can hardly be called that as nothing really
happens between them. I couldn’t even see what John would see in her as she’s
so closed off. So little interaction happens between them anyway, it’s not a
novel I’d recommend to romance junkies. They’ll be severely disappointed,
though I wasn’t. The last thing I needed was for that storyline to be dragged
out in an already slow book. Luckily I was spared from that.
Providence is a book with which you’ll need to
have a lot of patience. It’s a nice story and I liked that it’s different. But
that’s all it is. It’s just nice. Most of it comprises of Becky and Rosie’s
daily doings. No character growth, as far as I’m concerned, as Becky is already
very mature for her age, more so than you’d expect from your average
seventeen-year-old. There were no conflict (nothing to get excited about, at
least), no twists, no suspense, nothing. Yet, I couldn’t put it down every time
I picked it up to continue to the next chapter. For me it was just an okay
read, but I definitely would like to see what else this author has to offer.
PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT the AUTHOR
As a writer, I’m always keeping my eyes open for new ideas. I love
to read and to watch plays and movies. I love to visit gardens, wineries, museums,
and pretty much any place I’ve never been before. One of my absolute favorite
things to do is to linger over dinner with friends in endless conversation.
I’ve closed down many a restaurant!
I have three siblings, three kids of my own, and
one amazing granddaughter. (Although I feel way too young to be a grandma!)
Friends and family have taught me so much about life. They should know though
the old saying is true – if you get too close to an author, you just might end
up being a character in one of her books!
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