“She Got Up Off the Couch” by Haven Kimmel
I bought this book because the author, whom I follow on Facebook, announced that it was on sale, and I’d read A GIRL CALLED ZIPPY by the same author and liked it a good bit, and I found the title, SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH, wonderfully straightforward, yet enticing.
“Straightforward, yet enticing” describes the book too. Haven Kimmel (“Zippy”), the youngest member of the Jarvis family in Mooreland, Indiana in the 60’s and 70’s, is a feisty, exuberant little girl who watches her mother, Delonda, responding to what she believes is a call from God, literally rise from the couch she’s been lying on for years to tackle academia and a career. Delonda is a force, bucking her husband and society, and Kimmel does a great job of describing her determination, the prices she paid, and the sizeable rewards. Haven tells it like it was, straight out, and she tells it in such a funny, poignant way, that I fell in love with her perspective and with her.
I’d love to remember as much as Haven does about seeing the world through a child’s eyes, but I’ll settle for the many moments of recognition and empathy I had as I read about her struggles with her impossible hair, her overbearing but loving sister, her courageous mother, and her less than courageous father, who plays a major part in Haven’s facing painful realities. The people in Haven Kimmel’s life were not, as my mother would say, “all sweetness and light”. Haven writes the difficult parts deftly, without attacking or disrepecting anyone, making the wrongs ring even more true.
I stayed engaged with this book, finishing it ahead of a couple of others I was reading at the time, mostly, I think, because it’s real and upbeat without being sweetsie, and because Zippy’s tender/tough little girl self captured me. My contact with Haven Kimmel on Facebook shows me an unusually bright, sensitive, creative, spiritual (she proudly claims the Quaker faith, like her Indiana family), funny, engaged woman. Zippy, in SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH is those things too, and I don’t know when I’ve been more aware of how the child becomes the woman and lives inside her still.
You might want to read A GIRL CALLED ZIPPY first, but it’s not necessary in order to appreciate SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH. Such a good read. I loved it.
“Straightforward, yet enticing” describes the book too. Haven Kimmel (“Zippy”), the youngest member of the Jarvis family in Mooreland, Indiana in the 60’s and 70’s, is a feisty, exuberant little girl who watches her mother, Delonda, responding to what she believes is a call from God, literally rise from the couch she’s been lying on for years to tackle academia and a career. Delonda is a force, bucking her husband and society, and Kimmel does a great job of describing her determination, the prices she paid, and the sizeable rewards. Haven tells it like it was, straight out, and she tells it in such a funny, poignant way, that I fell in love with her perspective and with her.
I’d love to remember as much as Haven does about seeing the world through a child’s eyes, but I’ll settle for the many moments of recognition and empathy I had as I read about her struggles with her impossible hair, her overbearing but loving sister, her courageous mother, and her less than courageous father, who plays a major part in Haven’s facing painful realities. The people in Haven Kimmel’s life were not, as my mother would say, “all sweetness and light”. Haven writes the difficult parts deftly, without attacking or disrepecting anyone, making the wrongs ring even more true.
I stayed engaged with this book, finishing it ahead of a couple of others I was reading at the time, mostly, I think, because it’s real and upbeat without being sweetsie, and because Zippy’s tender/tough little girl self captured me. My contact with Haven Kimmel on Facebook shows me an unusually bright, sensitive, creative, spiritual (she proudly claims the Quaker faith, like her Indiana family), funny, engaged woman. Zippy, in SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH is those things too, and I don’t know when I’ve been more aware of how the child becomes the woman and lives inside her still.
You might want to read A GIRL CALLED ZIPPY first, but it’s not necessary in order to appreciate SHE GOT UP OFF THE COUCH. Such a good read. I loved it.