Book Review: Remember Whose Little Girl You Are

Happy Friday! We officially only have two days of school next week and then all four kids are off for summer break! Well, kind of. The younger two are signed up for summer school, it runs about a month and is half days, mostly doing fun stuff. The older two are signed up for marching band, but that's just a week basically to get ready for the parade. My oldest is going to work her two jobs, and my favorite boy is doing the Upward Bound program at UWS for six weeks and living on campus. I know he's nervous and not super thrilled, but I think it'll be good once he's there. Plus, they get to go to Seattle and I am ridiculously jealous because that is a bucket list trip for me! 

Remember Whose Little Girl You Are

 Ellen Nichols

Remember Whose Little Girl You Are captures the flavor of the Deep South like no author since Eudora Welty or Flannery O'Connor. Ellen Nichols captures the tenor of small-town Southern life in the fifties and sixties, with its vicissitudes and hilarity. One is captured with her openness and drawn deeply into the dialogue-so much as to, according to one reader, sometimes feel guilty of spying. 

Read it and see if you want those times back-or are just relieved they're gone. 

Are you super behind in your Goodreads good? Grab this one, it's only 116 pages and you will absolutely fly through it. It's a memoir too, so I really loved this one, it was fun and sweet in all the right places. Everything you think of when you think about Alabama during the Civil Rights era is absolutely in this book, and I loved it. 

I went to college, but I never lived in a dorm, so I really enjoyed reading about Ellen's time in college and just how different it was to now. Trigger warning though, this book does feature mentions of suicide, so if that's a thing for you, heads up on that. Despite her father being a Methodist reverend, they were rather liberal, which was far more progressive than the south was at the time. I also love how much Ellen was trying to really defend/stick up for people and really fighting for the rights of marginalized people. I'd like to think I'd be doing the same had I grown up during that volatile period. 

One of my favorite lines in the book? 

" I proved that I was a Soul Train girl, not a namby-pamby American Bandstand girl."

If ever there was a time I identified with a memoir, that line is it. HA! I loved that the "chapters" are named after characters that I have come into (and sometimes left) her life, and I felt like that was a pretty clever way to format the book; whereas most memoirs go event by event in their lives and it can feel tedious and slightly boring. I think it made this one a quick read and who doesn't love that? 

I really enjoyed this one, and it's a great read for us youngun's, but if this time period is your jam, you will really like this one and perhaps feel a kinship to Ellen. A huge thank you to TLC Book Tours for having me on this tour, and thank you to Ellen Nichols for sending me a copy (and these GREAT socks!!).