Tomboy by Shelley Blanton-Stroud Audiobook/Book Tour, Review, Guest Post & Giveaway! {Ends 10/28/22}

Review By LAWonder10:

The story of Tomboy was well written, fast moving enough to keep a reader’s interest but was a nostalgic type of drama. The historical history was written in a manner that it truly felt like a non-fiction. It was a very altruistic story. 

This story is about a young woman living in a very dysfunctional home, with an alcoholic father, living in poverty, and unable to complete her high school years because her employment was needed to sustain the family. She pretended to be a boy in order to get a position at the newspaper because in the 1930s women weren’t permitted to work in most industries. After a while, the Editor discovered her deception, but because she was such a dependable, hard worker she was allowed to stay will no hope of promotion She fled home with her toddler sister, because she refused to allow her sister to have the miserable life she was forced to live. She needed more money or she could not support her and her sister. 

This is about the daring adventures this young women went on in order to find a better job. It is also a story of self discovery and awareness.

The author smoothy fluctuates between her child self and her present self. The transition never leaves the reader/listener lost. 

Narrator , April Doty, did an outstanding job of bringing the story to life. With her consistent “voices”, sustained energy, and accents, she enhanced what may have felt like a mellow tale to one of enthusiasm and intensity.

I offer a Four Stars rating for the book and a Five Star rating for the professional performance.

*This audiobook was gifted me with no pressure for a positive review. This is my honest review.

Women juggling obligations big as bowling balls.

Someone recently asked me why I begin my historical mystery Tomboy with my protagonist, Jane, seriously injuring her head when her toddler sister throws a tantrum, slamming Jane’s head against the wall. Why begin here?

The first, most-general reason is that I am fascinated by the way women, young and old, often struggle to balance obligations to other people against their obligations to themselves. The most familiar version of this is the work-family conflict. I know so many women who feel that in trying to be both a worker and a caregiver, to children or to their own aging parents, they wind up doing both badly. It’s probably only rarely the truth, but that’s how it feels.

I wanted Jane to experience this struggle in taking care of her toddler half-sister, Elsie. Nineteen year old Jane is very ambitious and unlikely to succeed in journalism in 1939, not only as a woman but as a high school drop out who speaks with an Okie accent. But she wants that success. Desperately.

At the same time, Jane wants to protect and care for her sister in ways she was never provided for by her parents.This is hard to pull off, especially for a nineteen year old. So Jane will have to accept tradeoffs at two things she cares a lot about.

In the beginning, the scene’s tantrum was just a run-of-the-mill tantrum. Then one of my critique group partners, Gretchen, told me about a time when her child threw such a violent tantrum that the head thrashing broke one of Gretchen’s front teeth.

That’s when it occurred to me that I ought to up the ante. The crisis Jane is experiencing is real and complicated. If she’s got a head injury sustained while caregiving, at the very moment when her work obligations are peaking, it is a
crisis she must confront and sole. And that is the story below the mystery. How will Jane meet her obligations to family and to her future?