Customer Reviews

Burning of the Marriage Hat

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just don't buy the theory that Wyoming or Montana are truly as "narrow" as the author portrays. That is simply an excuse to hide behind. Montana and Wyoming have birthed a great number of strong women who managed to live through the perceived slights and do great things -- Jeannette Rankin for one.

As an adoptive mother, I appreciate the insight into the feelings of a birthmother, but I also did not appreciate the foreword which talked of the abuse of process in adoption. In MOntana, most adoptions remain performed through legitimate agencies with little cost to adoptive parents and very little in terms of attorneys fees. Additionally, the new wave for at least the past ten years has been open adoption which certainly should be promoted rather than continuing and berating the blight caused by the secrecy of old adoption practices. No wonder so many ill-equiped women continue to parent when the old practices are still advertised in this manner without any discussion of the realities of today's adoptions.

I enjoyed reading this story for the mystery and found the birthmother's story almost incidental to the plot. As a birthmother I appreciated the author's experience, but find that in my open adoption, I haven't experienced the same feelings.

However, everyone is entitled to their life experience. I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it if people read with an understanding that adoption has drastically changed over the years for the positive.

Set in the Wyoming of the late 1990s, and laced with memories of an earlier era, Burning Of The Marriage Hat: A Novel Of High Plains Women by Margaret Benshoof-Holler is the attention engaging story of a young woman who travels to lay her grandmother's ghost to rest, and to understand the genesis of her own ambivalence toward men. She learns of how women who became pregnant out of wedlock were once treated, and what it meant to come of age in Wyoming in the 1960s. A generational tale deftly written with penetrating insight, personality, and feeling, Burning Of The Marriage Hat is very highly recommended reading and would make an exceptional selection choice for women's reading groups.

The Burning of The Marriage Hat is a compelling novel about growing up in the 60's in a middle class family in a small prairie town in Wyoming. It is a poignant story of the narrow-minded life style one encounters there, and the struggle to find answers. You can almost feel the prairie wind whipping against your legs as you read.This spell-binding novel begs to be read in one sitting.

This was a wonderful book! It was beautifully written. The writer grabbed my attention by switching back and forth through time. I would recommend this book to everyone!