Name: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Tiffany Baker

"A spellbindingly woven tale about a girl who grows physically and emotionally beyond her small town's wildest expectations"--Provided by publisher

A Novel

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

When Truly Plaice's mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how recordbreakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother's death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of femine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated--Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers. Serena Jane's beauty proves to be her greatest blessing and her biggest curse, for it makes her the obsession of classmate Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Robert Morgans who have been doctors in Aberdeen for generations. Though they have long been the pillars of the community, the earliest Robert Morgan married the town witch, Tabitha Dyerson, and the location of her fabled shadow book--containing mysterious secrets for healing and darker powers--has been the subject of town gossip ever since. Bob Bob Morgan, one of Truly's biggest tormentors, does the unthinkable to claim the prize of Serena Jane, and changes the destiny of all Aberdeen from there on. When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly's brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling--the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques--hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan's family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly's reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Sarah Sammis

Truly Plaice, a very large and physically imposing young woman, narrates The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. She and her "perfect" sister, Serena Jane are separated after the death of their father, the mother having died in childbirth.

The story though isn't so much about Truly as it is about Aberdeen County and the other people who live there. It reminds me a bit of Cicily Alaska, fictional town in Northern Exposure.

It took me a long while to warm to Truly as a character. That's part of the point of the book though. She physically can't fit in with the feminine norms of her town. As a child her father resorts to dressing her in overalls as they fit her better, there just aren't any dresses large enough for her growing frame. Truly doesn't try to fit in just to be accepted and she in turn befriends a few other oddballs and outcasts.

Ultimately it was the other characters in the book that won me over completely. Truly I can take or leave but her kith and kin are fascinating.

The little giant of Aberdeen County

Natasha Musa

There are three parts to this book. The first part; the beginning, started a bit slow for me. In fact I was ready to call it quits on the book until I started reading the second part where Truly's life touched me. I couldn't help but continue reading to find out what would happen next. I love this book. There's a little touch of magic to the ending and its really quite a touching book. Any book that makes me cry deserves a two thumbs up.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County A Novel

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