A far superior coming-of-age story to A Separate Peace, which I read just the other day. Sure, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is much longer, but it’s also got way more to say and is far more applicable to the average young adult.

This book chronicles the life of Francis Nolan after a short stint of following her mother, which is longer than you’d expect and works very well to illustrate the generational challenges of immigration and poverty and youth.

This story is about, at its core, perseverance. It is beautifully characterized and written, though more granular than I tend to like, especially in the first of the five books. But when it does get going it starts shifts focus from seemingly absolutely everything—as we tend to do in adolescence—to what really matters. The bones of a life in a time that does feel a long time ago, until the obstacles come into focus. Then we see it’s the same human endeavours for most.

We are all trying to figure out what nourishes us and we all have flaws that too often seem annunciated by life.

As someone born to a young mother, with parents who struggled for most of my life to get up and out of poverty while putting themselves through university, a lot of this hits home for me. It doesn’t feel like poverty tourism and it celebrates the growth of all people, but especially those seen as the weeds and stumps in an otherwise lovely garden.

Had I been able to connect a bit more with the voice, I think this would have been a 5 star read. But as it is, I felt like I always always a safe distance away from the characters, even when they suffering and in trouble. It’s a weird psychic distance to have for such a story, but it does enable some wide meanderings that bear fruit.

Very glad to have finally gotten to it.