Little Giant of Aberdeen County

Title: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
Author: Tiffany Baker
Pages: 341
Pub Date: 2009
Genre: Literary Fiction


Truly had no hope right from the get go. Living in a small narrow-minded town, the folk there already had an opinion of her. Gigantic at birth, she killed her momma. It seemed as from that moment on, life was going to be tragic for her.

Completely opposite to Truly is her beautiful and dainty sister, Selena. While Truly is viewed with morbid curiosity and disgust, Selena is raised on a pedestal by her teacher, the popular boys, and classmates.

It would be easy to imagine Truly hating Selena; but instead, she is the force that carries Serena’s life. In a town where her only two allies are Amelia Dyerson from the unlucky and poor Dyerson Farm and Marcus Thompson, pipsqueak child who ends up a soldier, Truly never falters, in spirit or strength.

I won this copy from Nelly’s blog last month. Truly’s character immediately drew me in after reading blurbs from various netscape places. I was anxious to hear her story and enter her world.

Tragically, my high hopes were not met. While Baker writes beautifully (and she does!) I quickly found I could care less about any of the characters in Aberdeen County. I don’t know what it was exactly; perhaps the characters weren’t fleshed out enough for me? There were a fair amount of occurrences where I could not relate to Truly at all. Equally, I had a hard time believing even an ignorant town such as this one would be that horrendous to Truly when she was a child. Also, it seems that Baker wanted to sketch out the past of minor characters, I think, to show their motivation. It didn’t help. Rather, those moments felt more awkward in the storytelling than anything else. Amelia, the poor somewhat mute, was the only character that I had any interest for, and even then, it was merely a curious nod in her direction.

My negative position over the characters does not mean that I think you should not read The Small Giant of Aberdeen County. Baker’s prose is quite beautiful and well worth reading just for that. This is a very forgettable book for me, but who knows, you might get more out of it.