Forged by Fire, Sharon Draper

Reading List
Written By Rebecca Grabill
Forged by Fire
By Sharon M. Draper

Forged by Fire is gripping! And excruciatingly painful to read. A few thoughts:

I’m not sure if I bought the 3yr-old narrator with such a close and intimate narrative distance (or lack of distance). The boy seemed far too sophisticated for a 3yr-old. That aside, the situation is compelling and realistic, the dynamics of domestic violence vividly heartbreaking, and the dialogue toward the end stellar.

I found the big jumps in age of the protagonist jarring at times, the handling of themes blunt, and the POV uneven. I gathered Draper was going for a Toni Morrison effect, but I’m not sure she pulled it off one-hundred percent. Maybe 90%...

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Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
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