Customer Reviews

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Love, hate, forgiveness, revenge, mystery, witchcraft - all the elements of a fine novel. When these elements become prose in the hands of Tiffany Baker the results are finer than fine.. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is memorable in every way, not only as an extraordinarily well written novel but also as a story rich with meaning.

We meet Truly Plaice who is an anomaly in the small town of Aberdeen. She would be an anomaly anywhere because Truly is a gargantuan woman, challenging the scales at 400+ pounds. There is little room in our world for those not seen as normal and Truly is reminded of her perceived abnormality every day. These reminders come in cruel ways, such as a schoolmate putting tacks on her chair to see whether or not she can feel the sticks through such generous flesh or in the astonished stares of the curious.

Her mother died in childbirth. Townsmen had placed bets on the weight of a baby who had added so much poundage to a woman. By the age of one and one-half years the only clothing that would cover Truly was one of her father's shirts. He was a perplexed miserable man who never recovered from his wife's death, and was totally unable to handle raising Truly and her older sister, Serena Jane, who was petite, beautiful, vain and a perennial May Queen. Such a contrast was painful for both girls.

After their father died the sisters were parceled out - Serena Jane went to the home of Amanda Pickerton where she and her minister husband doted on the girl. Serena Jane's future was bright until it was altered by Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest son of the Morgans whose men had been the town's doctors for generations.

Truly was sent to a ramshackle farm owned by the Dyerson's; it was a place where no one save debt collectors came to call.. While Truly missed her sister she grew to love working out of doors and tending to the farm's horses.

She walked to school with young Amelia Dyerson who rarely spoke. They found no friends or welcome there save for Marcus, another unusual child who had an eager mind and a penchant for remembering details.

Truly grew to adulthood, ever larger due to an abnormality in her pituitary gland. She knew little of what other young women knew but she also knew some things that they did not. It was rumored that the first Dr. Morgan's wife, Tabitha, was a witch who possessed strange healing powers and had made note of her secrets in a shadow book long hidden where it would not be found.

Readers will find themselves loving Truly and pulling for her, hoping that somehow she can overcome insurmountable obstacles. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is a not to be forgotten epic, every bit as grand as Truly herself.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

By the time Truly was born, she had already been big news. Truly's mother died giving born to Truly that it was speculated that Truly killed her mother. Dr. Morgan said Truly's size was a new record. Truly and her older sister, Serena Jane are complete opposites. Truly is a big gal, that when she was growing up she had to wear boy's clothing; where as her sister, Serena Jane looked like a china doll with her blond hair and petite frame. Truly turned out to be the star of Aberdeen but not the kind of star anyone wants to be. While Truly tries to get by day by day; her sister Serena Jane has caught the attention of Dr. Morgan's son, Robert. Robert thinks Serena Jane s the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and he wants her for his own. He will do anything to keep her.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is a charming, endearing read. In my opinion Truly was the prettier of the two sisters. Truly is beautiful both on the inside as well as the outside. She had a big heart that reached everyone; no matter whether they liked her or not. Serena Jane could have sided with the rest of the town and rejected her sister but she loved her sister and it showed in the end. Tiffany Baker shows just how talented she is with her debut novel The Little Giant of Aberdeen County. Tiffany has just gained a fan in me.

Tiffany Baker's The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is well written and Ms. Baker has a creative way of expressing herself as well as considerable command of the English language. However there are some weaknesses to the work that bear mentioning. There were so many references to Truly's giant size that eventually the reader gets tired of hearing how large Truly is. There are holes in the plot that make much of the book unrealistic. I think Ms. Baker should have spent just a bit more time editing and re-writing so that the plot holes were taken care of and resolved. Likewise, there are parts of the book that are too obvious, such as where Tabatha had hidden her book of spells and cures. Many characters were given too short a treatment in terms of character development. Many of the men were stereotypical and seemed to lack realism. Often we are told too much by Ms. Baker and she could have actually produced a stronger book had she said less rather than said more. A good example of this is the conversations Dr. Robert Morgan has with law enforcement and the coroner about notifying him whenever an unknown woman's body was located. We could have used a bit more mystery here. There were very few if any surprises in the novel, it was a just a bit too predictable. I did think there was some dark somber humor hidden in the book, especially in the odd characters of the school teacher and the preacher's wife, both of whom were hateful creatures. I wish I could say more positive aspects of the novel but Ms. Baker should have spent just a bit more time re-writing this novel. As it now stands, it is a bit too amateurish.

I read The Little Giant of Aberdeen County because it came with blurbs from Sara Gruen and Stephanie Kallos, both of whom have written books I admired. Well, Gruen and Kallos may be excellent writers of fiction, but they're apparently not so hot as judges of other writers' fiction, because Little Giant doesn't belong on the same shelf with Water for Elephants, Broken for You, and Sing Them Home.

For one thing, many of the characters in Little Giant are almost cartoonishly unbelievable. I'm prepared to believe that a child who has the misfortune to be born with gigantism in a small town in upstate New York would be teased mercilessly by all the other children in the town, and that many of the adults in the community would behave in an uncaring way toward her. But I find it hard to believe that virtually all of the adults in the town -- including the doctor, the schoolteacher, and the minister's wife -- would be so repulsed by the child's appearance that they would be not just uncaring, but almost pathologically hostile to her.

For another thing, the book is badly written, with breathtakingly banal observations about life (which the author seems to think are original and profound) appearing on almost every page. The author's most annoying stylistic tic is her tendency to make up extremely strained metaphors (or, as she would probably describe them, metaphors as strained as a weak teabag). By the time I got to "Truth is like a blunt hoe", near the end of the book, I wished I had a blunt hoe to attack the book with. Where was the editor who could have nipped this metaphor-mania in the bud, like a gardener with a pair of secateurs? (Oh, no -- now she's got me doing it, too!)

I enjoyed reading this book; it's well written. The story moves at a reasonable pace, and the characters are unique. There's Truly, the giant, who grows up believing that she killed her mother (who died while birthing her), and believing that she is unworthy of any kindness. Her best friend is Amelia Dyerson, a shy girl who manages to communicate without many spoken words. (How challenging that must have been to write!) Next is Dr. Robert Morgan, the fifth Dr. Robert Morgan the small town has had--each one of them arrogant and mean-spirited. Then there's Marcus Thompson, a man with a brilliant mind, but a smallish, somewhat handicapped body. These are round characters, all with secrets and flaws. Even the minor characters are well written!

As the only "pretty" character is Dr. Morgan, one of the themes is that beauty is only skin deep. How much more difficult life is for the imperfect person.

The novel is written in first-person narrative and third-person omniscient voice, allowing the reader to understand the different thought processes. There's a bit of profanity included. There's a bit of a romance. (It could have been left out.) There's more than a bit of mystery. And there's a tale that demands deeper thought once the final page has been turned.

The trouble with this book is not the writing, but that there wasn't a single character to like, feel for, or identify with. Truly is not likable, and her choices are head-scratchingly ignorant.

By page 24, Baker had expounded on Truly's size so much that I wanted to scream, "Enough already! OK, so this kid is big, fine, now get on with the story!" It was so annoying that I had to put the book down. Eventually I began reading again, only to sigh with indifference when I reached page 100.

But fair is fair, and even though I didn't like the story or the characters, I gave the book three stars because the writing was good.

Tiffany Baker's "The Little Giant of Aberdeen County" is set in the second half of the 20th century in the small town of Aberdeen, New York. The story focuses on the life of Truly, a girl in Aberdeen who has a disease that makes her grow unusually fast. Her size makes Truly an outcast her entire life, a problem that is compounded when the town insists on comparing Truly to her perfect and beautiful sister Serena Jane. Truly leads a difficult life, and it is only made more challenging by decisions others make for her. It is only once Truly decides to take her life into her own hands, that she is able to escape the stigma of being the "little giant" and find happiness.

I think my opinion of this book suffered from the over-the-top praise that I read about it before I actually got around to reading the book. From what I had heard others say, I thought this book was going to change my perspective and introduce me to a completely new and wonderful character. Instead, "Little Giant" is filled with miserable people who are downright cruel to each other. Only at the very end of the novel does anything even remotely uplifting happen, but by that point the novel is so dark it's hard to redeem. I feel like I can't say too much without giving away the plot, but I found myself continually frustrated by the passivity of the characters--they knew they were miserable, but they did nothing to try to change their circumstances. There was no great lesson for all of this suffering, and at the end of this novel I felt sorry for its characters but I also felt a little empty--I couldn't figure out what the purpose of the story had been.

This novel is still kicking around in my head--I think I'm still trying to figure out why the author wanted to tell this story--so I can't say it wasn't worth reading. Baker also has a gift with language, and she has some wonderful turns of phrase that made sections of the novel beautiful to read. But I am puzzled as to much of the praise for this novel--but I would still likely recommend that if you're curious about this buzzed about book, go ahead and give it a read.

I tried hard to like this book, because I'm fond of debut novels. Despite some lyricism in phraseology, the characters were thinly drawn and difficult to like. There were several holes in the plot, and important details (how big was Truly?) were left to the imagination. Perhaps the author thought that stating Truly's exact size would make the love story less believable? There are plenty of men who love large women, and detailing Truly's size might have made her character more interesting and believable.

I looked on Amazon expecting to see the book trashed and was surprised at all the glowing reviews. So here's another voice of dissent.

I really hated this book but a friend recommended it--because I like "dark and quirky books"-- so I had to finish the thing. Let me be clear that I always appreciate good writing, no matter the genre or theme.

Egads, this book simply tries too hard! It's overworked on the sentence level and underworked at the plot and theme levels.

The folks who warned about the annoying (over)use of uninspired similes and metaphors weren't exaggerating. The story is predictable, the foreshadowing is unsubtle and repetitive, and the characters lack depth. And despite being as different from each other as possible, the characters are all kind of the same, somehow.

At the very least I hope I've convinced you to use the 'look inside this book' feature.

This book was terrible. I cannot understand all the high reviews it has received. I bought in as an audiobook and had I not spent good money on it, I would have quit listening to it long before the end. I DID have to stop it and come back to it a few weeks later with the hopes that it was me and not the book, but it was still bad.

The characters were shallow, the situations were trite. There was just no development of character or plot whatsover. Although it started out somewhat promising in the first third, the remainder of the book seemed to be a mess of the author's throwing in a little something about everything she ever knew anything about.

In addition, Ms Baker apparently never met a simile or metaphor she didn't like because she certainly leaned heavily on them as writing props. Perhaps it was more obvious in an audiobook but I started anticipating how she was going to end each sentence. Would she start her simile with "like" or "as"? Would she use one or two similes? Rare was the sentence that had none.

I do not understand what others saw in this book that I missed.