Book Review: Cold Sassy Tree

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finding a book good enough to go into my most favorite of all time folder seems to get more and more rare the older I get, but this book made the cut. I absolutely loved it. I wish I still had a bookclub so I could discuss it with girlfriends. It was so emotionally powerful.

Will Tweedy is just a teenage kid living in Cold Sassy in the 1920's. Yes, he's fictional, but he is real to me, and will be to anyone else who reads this book. Written by Olive Ann Burns it's more than amazing how she pulled off writing from the perspective of a Southern teenage boy. She nailed it. Not that I'm a teenage boy to know, but I feel like I could be now because Will shared so eloquently and honestly his feelings about everything.

And everything was the content of this book. From teenage fantasies, to soul-searching theology, suicide, farming, all the way out to a housewife's cleaning regiment, and funny funny practical jokes and stories, Cold Sassy Tree touched on so many entertaining and thought-provoking subjects.

The author explored the hypocrisy of Christianity and brought to the light what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ. Will Tweedy's grandfather, Rucker Blakeslee, although non-religious and somewhat sacrilegious, was a man with sound character and a love for others and he became a real hero to me in my reading of this book. Funny that the books basis is the fact that Rucker married a Yankee hussy three weeks after the death of his widow: what an unlikely hero. But, a hero he is. And Will Tweedy told his story just right, especially by using all that southern tuh-wang in the writing.

Go back to this post for a reading of the book if you don't mind a spoiler.