and bright, Molly figures out at a young age that she will have to be tough to stay true to herself in 1950s America. In her dealings with boyfriends and girlfriends, in the rocky relationship with her mother and in her determination to pursue her career, she will fight for her right to happiness. Charming, proud and inspiring, Molly is the girl who refuses to be put in a box."
An objectively good book with some really, really questionable sections.
A fun and interesting coming of age story with a spunky main character, Molly, who never accepts an answer or societal control, kicks against all her disadvantages and the bigotry facing her. It was genuinely funny too - the description of the children's nativity play in the local school is priceless. Overall I enjoyed reading this book, especially the childhood part. However there were some definite issues.
First of all, everything is too contrived. Everyone Molly meets just happens to become gay. Things happen very easily for Molly, she is homeless in New York than the next day finds a cheap apartment? I mean I wasn't in New York in the 70s, I wasn't around at all in the 70's, but that seems a little unrealistic.
I enjoyed the main character’s strength of self and unapologetic intention to live her life only for herself without a care for what the world thinks. However, there is unfortunately little nuance, little moments of understanding and in truth, little sense of a full character. Molly's a one-dimensional saviour, who has no negative characteristics accept for the fact that she seems to be a bit of a bitch. She never seemed to care about any of the women she slept with. Her definition for being a lesbian seemed to be that she enjoyed sex with women more than she did sex with men, which I mean...I guess that's one definition. She never seemed to fall in love or actually care about anyone.
Now, the parts I had some real issues with. The aggressive putting down of butch lesbians, basically amounting to butch women being just like men. Molly literally says, why would she wish to be with a butch women, if she wanted a men she would sleep with a man. So yeah.... Then goes on to characterise butch women as ugly, stupid and grotesque. There is also the putting down of older lesbians. They are characterised as predatory and deeply sad. I am of course not here to say that there are no predatory, stupid, ugly people within the community, obviously they are. But for that to be all that you show in a book? Molly is the only "good" queer. It actually feels really homophobic for a gay book.
There is also a rape scene (with Molly being the attacker) or at least the consent lines where so blurred I really wasn't comfortable with it. And the final cherry on top, - the approval and almost slight endorsement of incest and the assertion that it's "anti-human" to not commit incest to some level. I mean...excuse me, what? I am unsure whether all of these views are the authors, but as the book is semi-autobiographical I am led to believe so.
I enjoyed the humour, the quirky happenings, the side characters were vivid and writing wasn't bad. It was interesting to read a book so important within the lesbian historical canon. But as a book that has been called so "sex positive", and I am no prude, but I personally don't think rape, incest, infidelity, cheating and sex without any emotions if very healthy or sex positive.
Age Rating 16+ Sex, homelessness, discrimination, abortion, childhood abuse, death.
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