About:
Foster by Claire Keegan is a short novel, talking about an Irish girl living in a foster home for a short time, though she doesn’t know it. Ms. Keegan is an award-winning short story writer from Ireland.
- 128 pages
- Publisher : Grove Press
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 080216014X
My rating for Foster – 5
Buy Foster from Amazon.com*
More Books by Claire Keegan*
Thoughts:
Even though Foster by Claire Keegan is a very short book, it’s packed with sadness, but also warmth. We get to know the little girl who is the protagonist, even though we don’t know her name.
The young girl lived somewhere around Clonegal, and the drive to the Kinsellas’ rural farm in Wexford is long. We feel her anxiety as she had never met the couple, supposedly relatives, before.
Told in the first person, the young girl absorbs much of what she sees, hears, and feels. The foster couple actually talks to her, teach her, validate her, and helps her do better when she makes mistakes. They never had children, lavish on the little girl all the love they could muster.
The writing is beautiful, haunting, and spiritual at the same time. I’m sure there are more layers I undoubtedly missed. Especially enjoyable is the speech patterns which, to me, sounded very charming and exactly what I would have thought an Irish accent sounds like.
It says a lot about us when reading a book such as this, I expected something bad to happen every time I turned the page. Not that being torn away from your home, as miserable as it might be, and being put indefinitely with strangers isn’t bad enough. There’s nothing “evil” in this story, but it is extremely profound, especially when considering its length.
I also enjoyed the depiction of the countryside, neighborhoods, and neighbors. They seem to me very real, and very natural without Ms. Keegan forcing anything upon the reader.
Synopsis:
A young girl is sent to live in a foster home in rural Ireland by her larger Irish family. She does not know when she’ll return home.
On the farm, the girl finds love and comfort she never had and begins to blossom.
Buy Foster from Amazon.com*
More Books by Claire Keegan*
Zohar – Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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