Let the Lion Eat Straw

Let the Lion Eat Straw (Advanced Reader) by Ellease Southerland

2005

Weight: 4.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Leaving out in public

This is yet another book that reviewers seem to love, and I thought was just okay.  A woman’s life unravels from being a small child growing up in the South, to a young woman in New York, moving back to the South, going back North.  It is a wonderful story in that you see how much is packed into her individual life.  You see her achieve dreams and lose others.  You see the personal mess ups and the times when other people messed up in irrevocable ways that would always affect the main character.  You read a book like this and you think about all that you will never know about the many people you encounter every day.  

The book sometimes seemed too tragic, but then it was always balanced with hope and the honesty that life goes on.  That life is often more lackluster than we had hoped when we were young.  The broken, streaming prose was often confusing, though sometimes beautiful.   I thought it was a decent book, but I will not read it again and would not recommend it if someone asked me what books I read and loved recently.