PJ REECE, Writer, Author, Blogger
“I love Annie because she’s a freedom fighter all the way.’
Every story is an “escape” story. And in Caitlin Hicks’ Kennedy Girl, escapes are in progress on many fronts. The protagonist, Annie Shea is escaping childhood. Her black boyfriend, Lucas, is running from the L.A.P.D. in the immediate aftermath of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968. And Annie’s brother, Bart, is hell-bent on reaching Canada to escape the Vietnam war. It’s a time for growing up and discovering who you are—and the clock is ticking.
Annie’s battles with family and society testify to the preeminent human struggle between being safe vs being free. I love Annie because she’s a freedom fighter all the way. Her life reminds me of the saying, “A boat is safest in the harbour, but that’s not what boats are for.” Annie Shea needed no coming-of-age crisis to figure that out, but she gets one anyway.
Readers will love this Annie Shea encore. It’s the same Annie whose relentless antics captured our hearts in Hicks’ previous novel, Theory of Expanded Love. Neither author nor protagonist explain much in either book, instead we’re trapped inside Annie’s monkey mind. The reader can only go along for the ride and isn’t that why we read fiction.
~ PJ https://pjreece.ca/
ODESSA BROMLEY, avid reader
“deeply moving story.”
