Smith, Sherri L. - Lucy the Giant

[oyceter]

Lucy's father is an alcoholic, and her mother ran away long ago. When things finally get to be more than she can bear, she runs off. After she's mistaken for a worker, she ends up passing as an adult and getting a job on a crabbing boat. The work is extremely difficult, tiring, and sometimes life-threatening, but Lucy enjoys the people she meets there, and she slowly begins to make a place for herself.

Although I found some parts of the story hard to believe—mostly Lucy being able to get by as an adult and the resolution—Smith provides enough details about life on the crabbing boat to draw me in. I particularly love stories about work, and my favorite parts of the book revolve around how Lucy learns to crab and to get by on a crabbing boat in the freezing Arctic. While the arc of the story itself isn't original, since it's mostly girl grows up, girls finds own place, the setting (both Alaska and the boat) sets it apart.

As mentioned, I had a few problems with the ending, the largest being that I felt there should have been more repercussions than there were. On the other hand, I'm glad that Smith didn't hand out a happy ending on a gold platter with regard to the relationship between Lucy and her father; the alcoholism isn't glossed over or prettified.

While part of me would complain a bit about girl of color in a downtrodden situation (Lucy's mother is Native American and I didn't catch Smith specifying the race of Lucy's father), the focus of the book really isn't on Lucy's alcoholic father or even how she copes with him. It's more on how she learns to be competent on the crabbing boat.

Interesting, and have checked out another one of Smith's books.

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

How old is Lucy supposed to be?

[oyceter]

She's 15, and as you can tell from the name, she's very very tall and probably physically strong, so I can see the mistake there. And I can see her being mature for her age thanks to her family circumstances. I mostly am not quite sure how it works legally (do the crabbing boats usually hire workers who don't have ID so just don't ask? and etc.).

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

My suspicion is that crabbing is like farm work; they are used to having a number of illegals around and are perhaps not in the habit of asking for full paperwork, but that's based on my rural experience in VT and may not be at all accurate.

[oyceter]

No, that works, and I was thinking much the same, especially when they were very understanding about her wanting to cash her check instead of deposit it.