Book Review: All We Had

Title: All We Had
Author: Annie Weatherwax
Year of Publication: 2014

Summary: For Ruthie Carmichael and her mother Rita, life has never been stable. Jobs are hard to find, men come and go. But when a set of unexpected circumstances strands them in Fat River, a small rural town in upstate New York, life takes a turn. Fat River becomes the first place they call home. 

The modest economic security they gain gives them peace and space for friends. The people of Fat River—Hank and Dotty Hanson, the elderly owners of the local hardware store being driven out of business by the new Walmart; Mel, the flawed, but kindhearted owner of the town diner where Rita finds work; and the cross-dressing Peter Pam, the novel’s voice of warmth and reason—become family. Into this quirky utopia comes Vick Ward, a smooth-talking broker who entices Rita with a subprime mortgage and urges her to buy the ramshackle house she and her daughter have been renting.

Tough and quick-witted, thirteen-year-old Ruthie—whose sardonic voice and plain-spoken observations infuse All We Had with disarming honesty and humor—never minded her hardscrabble existence as long as her mother was by her side. Through it all, the two have always been the center of one another’s lives. But when financial crisis hits, their luck takes a different turn. 



Review: **Copy kindly provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Beautiful and haunting, All We Had is a novel that is unpretentious and unabashed, and will leave you reeling.

Ruthie's voice gripped me from the very beginning and had me turning pages throughout the story. The beginning to middle was a little slow, but when it picked up it swept me off my feet and into Fat River, the heart of the novel and the place where it is set.

The eclectic characters had me spellbound - from Peter Pam who was by far my favourite, to the strange, but kind Hanson's who owned the carpentry store. The events and characters of the story had me in tears at multiple points, but especially the end.

There is so much of this story that hit home for me - but putting it into words seems impossible. It is truly a novel that you just have to experience for yourself.

Rating: 5/5 stars
★★★★★