Saturday, April 19, 2014

Book Review: Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

Title: Glitter and Glue
Author: Kelly Corrigan
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible
This book would be rated: PG or PG-13 for language

Layer #1: Kelly Corrigan is a woman in her late thirties whose mother drops everything and flies from Baltimore to San Francisco when she learns that her daughter needs surgery.

Layer #2: Kelly Corrigan is a woman in her early twenties who ditches her job at a non-profit to travel the world. She ends up in Australia, working as a nanny for a family whose mother recently died of cancer.

Layer #3: Kelly Corrigan is a young girl who adores her funny, larger-than-life father (the "glitter") and often resents her humorless mother (the "glue").

In Glitter and Glue, Corrigan paints a picture of her relationship with her mother. Her experiences living with a family in Australia who no longer have a mother help her get over some of the petty resentments she harbors against her own mother. Later, as she has her own health scare, her time in Australia highlight many of the fears she has for the future of her own family. It's a complex book, but one that I especially enjoyed as I've grown up and try to see my mother not as the harried mom of three small kids, but in a more mature, more generous light.

2 comments:

ellen said...

I loved this book. And I heard Kelly speak in Boston about six weeks ago. She was fantastic!!

Gerbera Daisy Diaries said...

Loved this...but The Middle Place is still my favorite. I want to be her best friend.