Customer Reviews

She Got Up Off the Couch

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Haven Kimmel's latest memoir installment is even better than the first ("A Girl Named Zippy") if that's possible to imagine. "She Got Up Off the Couch" is deeper, more interesting and funnier! Watch how she gradually reveals some of the truths of her young life. This deft unveiling technique works perfectly to paint a more sympathetic picture of her family than if she had merely started out stating some of the "facts" about her early life. Thanks to her perfect pacing, we as readers grow in affection for her mother, father and sister before we know some things that otherwise may have made us judge them harshly. Clearly Zippy does not want us to judge them harshly and her superb talent gives us, and her family, this wonderful gift.

No higher praise can I give than to also note that young Zippy has echoes of Scout Finch throughout the narrative. I hated to reach the last page.

If you haven't read "The Solace of Leaving Early", Haven Kimmel's first novel, you will want to do so now. It's has one of the most deliciously irritating protagonists I have ever had the pleasure to meet between the pages of a novel. In fact, I'm going to go re-read it (again) because just writing this makes me recall it's splendor!

Three years ago I accidentally read "A Girl Named Zippy." It's not a book I would have thought to read, you know; the memoirs of a woman's young childhood. My daughter had received the book as a Christmas gift. With nothing better to do one day while sitting in the car as my daughter and her friend were sledding, I picked it up off the car seat and read. After we got home, I couldn't stop reading it, anxious to see what happened next, and read it straight through `til finishing in the wee hours of the morning. Only the aching for another chapter... or two... or another book marred its excellence, `cause Zippy ends with her about 9 or 10 years old. I was excited to hear the continuation was released; I got a couple copies for gifts overnight, and read from the noon UPS delivery until 4 am. There's still plenty of the endearing wacky kid in this book ("I had taken to sucking on gravel, which didn't go over well with my sister... Sometimes I washed it off with the hose, and sometimes I just rubbed it on my shirt. I'd get it in there, move it around. Pea gravel makes a lot of noise in a mouth. It tasted exactly like rock."). But along with stories of her brother, her sister, her friends, and especially her less than stellar dad, half the book is about the improbable Phoenix-like rise of her downtrodden mother who gets her life back on the track delayed two decades by a husband content to let his family live in poverty. Her fascination with her mother's journey and transformation leads her to take every opportunity she can to vicariously share it. I grew up, in nearly the same period, in two of the surrounding towns that played big parts in this story, so there's a nostalgic angle for my enjoyment, but I can't imagine anyone not loving this book, especially if they read Zippy first.

I honestly didn't think that A Girl Named Zippy could be topped, but Haven Kimmel has done it again. The woman is amazingly talented! While the first book was innocent and exuberant, this one was more thought provoking and poignant as Zippy grows into an adolescent young woman with so many thoughts and feelings swirling within. Don't get me wrong, there is some incredibly funny stuff in this book. There were times when I threw my head back and laughed so hard I could hardly breathe, but it kept me thinking, also. For me, the best chapter was titled "Gold" when she pays homage to her friends. Oh, my goodness! Tears came to my eyes. She absolutely captured the essence of what true friendship is all about and the fact that they all accepted her for who she was despite her family's situation.

I truly hope that this is only book two of a trilogy. I'm anxious to know what happens to Zippy as she evolves into Haven. I want to know how Delonda copes with her husband leaving the family. I want to know if Melinda ever stops torturing Zippy. I want to know more about Dan and how he reconciles his feelings about his father and his childhood. And I even want to know what eventually happens to Bob Jarvis though a side of him is revealed in this book that isn't as endearing as in the first book. I want to know, dang it!

Haven Kimmel used "Zippy" to polish her writing skill, this one benefits from that experience. A really good read. Even funnier than "Zippy." Please don't make the mistake I did, however. I assumed because she was such a good writer, her novels would be good as well. I bought them, but they ended in the "round file." Kimmel needs to stay with the people and places she knew. Her fiction is one of those things publishers publish because of the "name." They will sell to people like me because I liked her "experience" books so well. But, sadly, The fiction should have been buried in the back yard.

A Girl Named Zippy was fun and touching. She Got Off the Couch is funnier and so much richer. Finally the truth about her childhood comes out around the edges, and you learn what you suspected in Zippy, that there was much not right in her world. This is a happier story by several removes than The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, but it reveals some of that perplexing realization that children do love their parents, no matter what. If we are ever going to fix the world we will need to start with this truth.

If I could be a writer, this is the kind I'd want to be! Just so fun, interesting and easy to relate to. She just leaves you wanting to know more about what happened to her family. She perfectly captures the voice of childhood without being precocious. A really fun, worthwhile read - I wished it were longer.

Haven Kimmel is in the same class as Frank McCourt, only a little more upbeat. She invites you into her heart and mind (both 'Couch' and 'Zippy') with disarmingly goofy cover pictures of herself, and procedes to dazzle with witty phrase-turning and episodes that are instantly familiar and immediately unforgetable.

There is a reason this writer has written two successful memoirs before reaching middle age. She is fantastic. She writes in the voice of a child but with the wisdom of an accomplished literary artist.

Note: If you end up with as vivid a picture of Mooreland as I did, you might get a kick out of using Google Earth to actually take you there. It's high definition and you can practically see her on her bike heading over to her sister's house.

A wonderful second memoir by Haven Kimmel. I'm down to my last few pages, and I truly hate for it to end. I only hope she continues with a third sequel!

In this sequel to A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY, Haven Kimmel continues the saga of her family who resided in the very small town of Mooreland, Indiana. The anecdotes of the Jarvis family are sometimes humorous, often poignant, and always believable. The author had not intended to write a sequel, but everywhere she went while promoting A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY her fans clamored to know if Delonda got up off the couch. Indeed she did.

Zippy's mother spent many years at her command post, the couch, reading all types of books, knitting lovely things and eating crunchy junk food. She spoke softly and secretively into the telephone to her friends from church. The family came and went while Delonda maintained her spot on the couch. She seemed like a fixture in the room.

But nothing remains the same forever. Delonda, the couch potato, had some powerful stirrings to participate in the outside world --- especially to drive a car and to attend college. Her husband, an extremely self-centered fellow, had no interest in his wife's ambitions nor in assisting her in any way. But the church ladies, her always-available support group, encouraged her to act on her ambitions.

Zippy was absorbed in her own life. She was a rambunctious tomboy who loathed taking baths and wearing shoes. She hated her hair and really disliked wearing dresses. If there was mischief to be found, Zippy usually instigated it. She seemed fearless, which might account for her frequent trips to the emergency room. Zippy was the youngest child, and her father often took her fishing or for rides in his truck. Even though the family lived in a wreck of a house and sometimes had their utilities shut off for nonpayment, her father always had money to dress well and keep a nice vehicle on the road.

Melinda, Zippy's older sister, loved to torment Zippy. She married and had a baby, Josh, whom Zippy, tomboy that she was, adored and loved to help take care of. Zippy's older brother Dan was mostly a memory to Zippy. She recalled his ramrod posture, his piety, and his terrible temper. He married and left their hometown without looking back or keeping in touch. Zippy often wondered why Dan abandoned the family.

Delonda took the College Level Exam Program test and passed with flying colors, earning 40 college credits. All those years of reading everything she could get her hands on from the bookmobile had paid off. Now she was really determined to pursue her dream. She tackled the next hurdle, learning to drive --- not an easy task for an adult who does not have access to something to drive. A church friend stepped in and helped prepare Delonda for the open road. Within two years Delonda received her college degree, earned with a perfect 4.0, and she had lost over 100 pounds. Clearly, Delonda intended to reinvent herself. And she was just getting started. Never again would she be housebound or dependent upon someone else for financial support.

The Jarvis family is, in many ways, just like any family, with its successes, failures and secrets. Zippy has given her family a unique voice. Though she writes from the perspective of a child, the words ring true to an adult's way of thinking. It is very likely that Zippy learned a great deal about herself, family dynamics in general, and especially about her mother's courage and determination as she wrote these witty, honest, painful and heartfelt anecdotes.

--- Reviewed by Carole Turner

Haven Kimmel knows the secret of life: that it's both sad and funny, often at the same time. For those who want to idealize childhood as a breezy, "best-time-of-your-life," perfectly carefree time, this book may seem dark. But in fact, Zippy's recounting of her family's life is wide-eyed and realistic, while still humorous and always loving. It's the story of all of our childhoods in that way: the things we saw and did, the people we adored and those we merely tolerated, and then the way we came to accept that those we love often are imperfect. Wildly imperfect, even. I found Haven Kimmel's voice to be flawless--never self-pitying, never bitter, and with a willingness to see the best in people without falling into the trap of oversentimentalizing. I want to read everything this woman writes!