So the first book I finished this month was Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore. This book was April's Read with Jenna pick from Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show. I discovered the Read with Jenna book club when I picked my February Book of the Month, which was one of her picks and found out that she partners with Book of the Month so each month her selection is either one of the main selections or available as an add-on, although I haven't actually picked one of her books from Book of the Month since I accidentally selected the February one. From this point on there might and probably will be SPOILERS for the book.
This book takes place in Odessa, Texas in 1976 and its about the women of Odessa after a teenage girl is raped on Valentine's night. It follows multiple women's perspectives including the victim, Gloria Ramirez; the woman whose porch she ends up on, Mary Rose Whitehead, and various other women around town as the rape case is tried in the town before it ever hits the courtroom. I really enjoyed the book, even though it does have a heavy subject matter. I liked the various perspectives it gives surrounding the same events and I liked how real it felt. This was Elizabeth Wetmore's debut novel and I gave it a really solid 5/5 stars.
The book starts on Valentine's night when 14 year old, Gloria Ramirez (who renames herself Glory after the attack) is attacked by a man who picks her up at a drive-in restaurant, rapes her, and leaves her for dead out on the oil fields around Odessa. Glory makes her way to a nearby farmhouse and is found on the doorstep by Mary Rose Whitehead and pregnant mother of a young daughter. After an ambulance has been called, the man shows up on the porch and demands Mary Rose send her out to him. The police show up before he can do more than threaten her and arrest him and take Glory to the hospital. As the story unfolds from the attack on Valentine's Day to the culmination of the trial in late August you follow not only Glory and Mary Rose, but other women and girls in town whose lives are also touched by the case in some way. The other narrators include Corrine, an older widow who became an alcoholic after her terminally ill husband had a "hunting accident" and died. Debra Ann (DA) a young girl whose mother disappeared and who has befriended a local vagrant. Ginny, DA's mother who took off to try and lay the foundations of a new life away from Texas, intending to return for her daughter. Suzanne, a local woman with the perfect life who has big opinions on the trial. And finally Karla who lives and works in the town after the events and has an encounter with the man of her own in an almost epilogue fashion.
At first the book seems to be a little bit of a slice of life format, just the stories of these girls and women and how they are interconnected with each other and the trial but comes to a fever pitch just after the trial concludes when Mary Rose snaps and goes after an innocent man, seeing danger around every corner. The relationships are tenuous sometimes but they all interconnect. Glory, the victim, goes to Mary Rose's farmhouse looking for help after the attack. After the attack, Mary Rose no longer feels safe by the oil fields and moves into town where she lives in the same neighborhood as Debra Ann, Corinne, and Suzanne. Mary Rose's daughter, DA, and Suzanne's daughter are all friends. Corrine lives across from Mary Rose in town and is a sort of reluctant surrogate parent/grandparent to DA. You learn the motives each woman has and their struggles and where they all stand on the attack and trial. Mary Rose has a naive idealism as she prepares to testify on Glory's behalf in the trial despite her husband's vehement objections. She has a high degree of fear and paranoia that takes root after being threatened by the perpetrator at the ranch and continues after she enters town with constant threatening calls from the men in town regarding the trial. Corrine is older and is still grieving for her husband and has turned to alcohol. She reluctantly lets DA into her life, as the little girl was very attached to her late husband. She also provides a measure of support for Mary Rose, even though she realizes that the trial isn't going to go the way she is so vehemently certain it will. Suzanne believes that being the perfect housewife and mother, and being above reproach will keep anything bad from happening to her own daughter, even as she judges Glory for both her race adn for being "loose". DA is lonely and on her own with her father working the oil fields after her mother disappeared. She befriends a young man who lost his truck and his way to get home after he came to Texas to make quick money in the oil fields. The connections and relationships between the women is fascinating against the backdrop of the crime committed against Glory.
The case goes predictably with the men of the court siding with the young white man and his "potential" over the victim, Glory, and her demonstrable injuries. He is convicted of a misdemeanor assault but not the rape and only has to pay a fine to Glory and her family. During the case Glory's undocumented mother was deported back to Mexico and she had decided against testifying in court given how the town treated her. When they get paid from the perpetrator against her, Glory and her Uncle leave Odessa for Mexico to reunite with her mother there. When the young man is let off with a slap on the wrist, Mary Rose loses it. She can't reconcile with how they treated her during her own testimony and how they would just dismiss Glory's injuries with just a slap on the wrist for her attacker. During a dust storm when Corrine discovers DA has taken her late husband's truck with her friend to get his truck, she charges off across the desert convinced that this man is either the one who got away with his attack on Glory or one just like him. Corrine goes after her and after a confrontation in the desert where Corrine manages to talk Mary Rose down, they retrieve the young man's truck and send him home. Slowly life goes back to whatever semblance of normalcy it ever had. One of the last chapters is one from closer to present day, a girl named Karla works in a diner in Odessa while raising her baby who she had as a teenager. The women working in the diner are wary of the men from the oil fields and take precautions to never be alone with them. The perpetrator of this violence against Glory is one who is particularly warned about among the women. He says something to Karla who slaps him and narrowly avoids being hit by him in return and he is ejected from the diner. A few days later he's in critical condition in the hospital after being hit multiple times with a car, he'll survive but has no memory of the accident. The women ignore the telltale mud and denting on Karla's car, indicating she is the one who hit him. Finally the women help Karla get out of Odessa and to University in the city.
The book doesn't pull any punches in regards to racism and sexism and violence against women but ends with a kind of hopeful note with Glory escaping her past pain to reunite with her mother and Karla almost taking retribution for what was done. The man, DA befriends goes home and has his sister write to DA and read her letters to him, showing that not every man who came for the oil boom is the same.
In short, I loved the book. I loved it a lot. I am definitely going to keep reading books suggested in The Today Show's Read with Janna book club.
Happy Reading!
Richelle
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