Kennedy's Goodbye - Kati Rose

Author: Kati Rose

Genre: Coming of Age, Christian Fiction!?!??!

Rating: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: Strongly mixed feelings because the book is brilliant in some ways but in many others, it was utterly disappointing.

Story:

The story begins in 1975, narrated from the first person perspective of ten year old Mary Kennedy, named after the Blessed Mother and the dead president. Kennedy is the resident of upstate New York, and the youngest in her family. All the people around her – her parents, the nuns in school, the priests in church, family friends – seem to be drilling rules in her head and Kennedy follows them to the T. But as the years pass by, she understands a brutal truth: “It just seemed to me as if all of the adults made all of the rules but never had to follow any of them.” The book tackles Kennedy’s feelings over the period of a few years, her relationship with her parents, her siblings and their spouses, and her own peers. The story ends in 1982.

👍Kennedy seems to be strongly Christian in her thinking, in that she goes to confession regularly to confess even others’ sins, she keeps praying for others’ souls and for her own, and she doesn’t blaspheme.

👎As the book progresses, Kennedy becomes more liberal in her thoughts, questioning her Catholic upbringing and rebelling by using bad language and other things her younger self looked down upon. My question: Does coming-of-age imply using bad words and blaming religion for all your troubles? Can’t a person be religious and mature at the same time? I didn’t enjoy this implication.

👍 Kennedy’s relationship with her siblings is very well-written. Right from the eldest Dooley – the perfectionist and egoist and favourite of the parents, to Gina – the husband hunter who ends up “committing a mortal sin”, and Roger – at twenty one, the closest to Kennedy in age but is much maligned by his entire family except for his youngest sibling. All their conflicts and the problems arising from the age gap come out clearly. Even the parents’ characters are well-penned.

👎 There are some things that are never answered in the book. Like why is Kennedy the only one who is almost orthodox in her religious thinking? Why do the family members have a policy of never touching each other? How did Kennedy acquire the pet name of “Boss”? These points are referred to time and again in the book but with no rationale forthcoming. Thus the problems in the family dynamic are mentioned but why the family is so dysfunctional is never clarified.

👍 There are a lot of sarcastic comments about religion and the religious in the book. Many of these comments are quite funny and any open-minded believer might still get a laugh out of the situations.

👎 The book is marked as “Christian fiction”. Oh boy! Someone sure got their definition of this genre wrong. My heart goes out to anyone who requested this book looking at that genre. The book has a lot of cussing (for example, it has 113 instances of the word ‘f*ck’ in its various conjugations – thank you, Kindle search!) and scenes that no Christian fiction will ever contain - premarital sex, masturbation, a priest indulging in a sexual relationship with a nun,… As an avid reader of almost all genres, I don’t mind my books having cuss words or "unholy" situations. But if a book is being marketed as Christian fiction and then contains such language, it is a big negative for me.

👍 Kennedy’s first person viewpoint gives us a nice idea of how the other characters in the book appear. This makes it easier to picture them and match their appearance with their behaviour.

👎 Kennedy’s own appearance is never described, except for a “nipple situation” when she is still young. When you can’t picture a character, it feels like a crucial element is missing.

👍 There is a fair bit of depth and a lot of intelligence in the writing.

👎 The above also means that it is quite slow-paced. Try as I might, I couldn’t go at my usual reading pace.

👍 The cover is gorgeous and represents a tree in Kennedy’s family garden, thus connecting to the story well.

👎 The cover makes the book look like children’s fiction. It is not so, by any means.

All in all, it was a very bizarre kind of coming-of-age story. Kennedy does mature from a naïve youngster to a more independent-thinking woman, but I am not at all sure if that’s what true coming-of-age is all about.

I am disappointed that this didn’t work out because that cover and the book blurb had given me very high expectations. But I hope the book finds other readers who are more in tune with its philosophy.

My thanks to Post Hill Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Kennedy's Goodbye”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.