The popularity of this book is probably what happens when talk show hosts start telling people what to read -- and people are misguided enough to listen. This book was too long by half. The language and voice were not convincing, and the characters, despite an excess of description and plot, still managed to be one dimensional. The narrator's constant victimization is wearing rather than sympathetic. If you want to read a book that sets out to accomplish the same task, but accomplishes it with brevity, grace, and power, read Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons