Girls In Trucks [Paperback]

Katie Crouch (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Back Bay/Little, Brown & Co.; 1ST edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747593515
• ISBN-13: 978-0747593515
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,795,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a 37-year old mom who writes about the South, ghosts, dogs, love, Hoodoo, and family...etc. I grew up in Charleston, SC, and all of my books are set in the South. I used to write about my hometown, but I stopped because my mother kept getting upset.

I write every single day, first by hand and and then typing. I don't write for specific audiences, though my current project is a trilogy for teens. I've been writing all my life, and received my MFA from Columbia University and have won fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and the Sewanee Writers Conference. My books have been translated into Spanish, German, and Turkish. I read all of the time...yesterday it was The Great Gatsby. Again.

I love to hear from fans on Facebook and twitter...books coming up include The White Glove War (the Magnolia League sequel) and The Ghost Trees, an old-fashioned literary fiction novel about love gone awry.

My family and I live all over the place - we're currently in Italy, though I make sure we spend a good two months in South Carolina a year. I need my shrimp.

For more about me, check out www.katiecrouch.com. You can also find out about great giveaways at the Magnolia League Facebook page.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Unexamined Life, May 14, 2008

By 

Heather A. Conrad "www.HeatherConradBooks.com" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girls in Trucks (Hardcover)

Good writing, a page-turner, but there is no there there. After reading this book I feel I finally understand what the word slacker means. Sarah Walters, from Charleston, South Carolina, narrates this story about her girlhood through to her early thirties. She's into substance abuse and unkind men. The contrast of her affluent southern belle upbringing with her down and dirty lifestyle is handled with clever wit. But, the story is told too much on the surface, for me. It is a solipsistic tale, except there is no real tale--more a series of seemingly workshopped vignettes, or like a decoupage--a collage of scenes with a veneer of shellac. There are no interiors. It's as if Crouch takes the fiction writer's maxim "show don't tell" over the top and we have no idea, ever, what anyone is feeling. I found a riff on the Chinese to be offensive, even if it was triggered by Sarah's ex dating an Asian woman. One hopes it was meant to be ironic but because there is no reflection or interior expression, one can't know for sure. Equally, when Sarah and her boyfriend think it's hilarious to rent a car and drive onto the highway when they are both stoned, drinking beer and neither of them has driven in a year, it appears the reader is supposed to find this funny, too. There is writing talent here, but not enough sense of story or character. I'd be interested to see what Crouch does next, unless it's more of the same.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Promising beginning dwindles to uncertain end, May 28, 2009

By 

Taigrr (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girls in Trucks (Paperback)

The author did an excellent job of bringing the reader into her world in the beginning of this book. However, about half way through, things started to fall apart, to the point where I had to wonder if I was indeed reading the same book, from chapter to chapter. I was disappointed that the freshness and pace dwindled into an aimless, disjointed mess of an end. Bottom line: I couldn't care less about any of the characters after reading the first half. Disappointing.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent story, well told, April 4, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girls in Trucks (Hardcover)

Sarah Walters grew up in Charleston trying to follow the rules. She attended Cotillion Training School to learn the dances and etiquette required of a debutante. As a member of the Camellia Society by birth, she will use these rules and skills all her enchanted life.

Sarah hears this from all directions, from her mother who drinks too much, from the Camellia Society mamas who always seem to be around, and from the other Camellias who attend Wednesday night classes.

Sarah's older sister, Eloise, is valedictorian and the most promiscuous girl in class, something she feels the need to share with Sarah. When Eloise goes away to Yale, Sarah's education also broadens. Charleston is no longer the place for her.

While Sarah learned how to serve tea, she never learned to respect herself. Sleeping around seems to be the norm, and while she feels like everyone knows the rules to this game but her, she stills wants to play.

A move to New York City with her friend Charlotte makes the game tougher as there is now more time to drink and party. Sarah spends time with the wrong men; men who are sick, or just cruel, and will let her turn herself inside out in order to keep them happy.

Tragedy in her family calls Sarah home where she realizes being a Camellia isn`t as pretty, or as safe, as it once seemed. Never the less, it is a constant-something and someone to depend on. Do the rules still apply? Can she be happy if she picks up where she left off in Charleston?

Told in a humorous voice, this is a dark tale of a young woman's endeavor to find true love and happiness. Women of all ages will identify with Sarah, if not in deed, at least in theory.

Armchair Interviews says: Well told, Girls in Trucks is a story that will keep you turning pages.