Review
In this follow-up to Gentle's Holler (2005), narrator Livy Two and her siblings are trying to cope after their father survives a horrible car accident but is too fragile to support the family. Brother Emmett has quit school to work in town, their mother knits sweaters to sell, and Livy begins working on the bookmobile with Miss Attickson and writes country-music songs that she hopes to sell in Nashville. Eleven-year-old Louisiana, a talented artist, turns out to be her father's best caretaker. It's a hand-to-mouth existence with the specter of an even less-desirable situation—a move to Grandma Horace's house—always lurking. Those who have read Gentle's Holler will best appreciate this sequel, but it does stand alone. Beautifully written and true to its setting in the North Carolina mountains during 1963, this continues the warm, loving, and poignant saga of a family that struggles with everything but love.