If Wishes Were Horses
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
If Wishes Were Horses is a moving coming-of-age novel that explores the depth of friendship, the hope for redemption, and the heartbreaking choices one must make in a difficult, brutal world.
It's 1974, and 16-year-old Star Hennessey is living with three other foster children in a broken-down central New York town. The daughter of an alcoholic prostitute, Star has so far escaped the gritty, painful circumstances of her life through the poems and stories she writes and recites in her head.
When she discovers she is pregnant, Star's search for the right course of action brings her face-to-face with the cruel exploitation she fears is her legacy--but culminates in her personal and spiritual triumph.
If Wishes Were Horses is a stunning story expertly told by Merry Whiteford, a graceful writer who delves into Star's harsh reality with compassion, hope, and beauty.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Whiteford weaves a tale of self-discovery in this affecting story of a young girl growing up in upstate New York during the 1970s. Star Hennessy's mother, Mildred, is an alcoholic prostitute who has long since lost her hold on reality, relinquishing Star and her brother, Lucky, to a strict foster home that they share with two other emotionally scarred orphan boys, Pig and Skeeter. Star is a typical teenager in many respects, but she and her three companions are street smart and world weary, facing the harsh realities of their dubious social status with a bravado incongruous with their adolescence and a touching loyalty to each other. At 16, Star finds solace in poetry, but despite her intelligence and her sophistication about her mother's profession, she becomes pregnant by Pig. This cataclysm leads her to new insights about her background, as well as a pivotal decision about the direction of her life. Star's narrative voice is strong, but her patience with and sympathy for her feckless mother strain credulity, and many of the events in this sentimentalized portrait of a sensitive girl battling for a decent life are improbable. Star's redemption and fledgling career as a poet could be inspiring to teenagers, however, and this uplifting novel could find a home on the YA shelf.
