Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens

This is a beautifully written book. Rush Home Road centres around the world of a woman called Addy Shadd who at the age of seventy is left to look after a boisterous mouthy five year old, Sharla Cody, after she is abandoned into her care by her mother. The books storyline is split between the trailer park where the two currently reside, and the seventy years of Addy's tumultuous life, both sentimental and powerful. Growing up as a black female in the U.S in the thirties and forties and then into the fifties, the book deals with issues such as racism, rape and murder and their devastating consequences but also shows that some people do triumph in the face of adversity. It's a tale of the survival of a woman who had to fight through no fault of her own, and the way in which the oddest most unlikely relationships can grow. It is ultimately a book full of hope, wonderfully thought out, thoroughly touching, and thought provoking and also terribly heartbreaking. Be prepared with a box of tissues because you will cry more than once; although not just with sadness but with joy, laughter, sympathy and recognition.
As you can see I loved this book and on finishing it felt bereft that I had finished; I wanted it to go on and on for ever.