Ebook291 pages6 hours
Sailor Girl
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this ebook
The Great Lakes serve as the setting for a powerful story about the men and women who labour upon them. Sheree-Lee Olson’s protagonist, Kate, belying her contemporary suburban origins and current career as an art student, is equal to the challenge of life aboard the lakers. Her adventures on the lakes culminate in an unanticipated and shocking climax.
Related to Sailor Girl
Related ebooks
Breakup Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Luxury Hour: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Vantage Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFall River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Iron Furrow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLifestyles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blue Butterfly: A Detective John Bowers Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1887 the Day They Turned off the Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutpatient: A Story of Horror And Madness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Poisoned Mind: A Trish Maguire Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Crown of the Revenant King: An Argentia Dasani Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead in the Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Alaskan Laundry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stars Look Down: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cutler 2: The Gunhawks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpty Hands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Woman of Virtue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crowmakers Trilogy Box Set: Crowmakers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Titanic Girls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrine: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLake Roosevelt: Thunder Mountain, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaironian Gold Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPilgrims of the Pool: Book 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPermanent Vacation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeepwater King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Alone: A Lady - A Boat - Alone Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Iron Furrow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHidden Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood (Part 1): Affairs of the Heart - Hollywood Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Fiction For You
The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Sailor Girl
Rating: 3.2 out of 5 stars
3/5
5 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The protagonist in Sheree-Lee Olson’s Sailor Girl is Kate, a twenty year old photographer. Kate is attracted to ruins. Rather than photograph the picturesque scenery on the family drives she takes with her parents, she snaps shots of buildings with crumbling foundations and smashed fences. “She couldn’t explain it. It felt right. She had always liked ruined things.Her father’s books, her mother’s old handbags, the musty smell of her grandmother’s house in Vancouver, where as a child she would beg to be allowed to look through the trunks in the basement. They were full of yellowing movie magazines, souvenir towels, tarnished hand mirrors. It was all junk, Gram said.”Then she enters a world very much like the damaged goods she likes to photograph. When Kate’s parents tell her they won’t finance an education in art school so she can study photography, she leaves home and finds work as a porter on a freight ship that travels around the Great Lakes. Her goal is to earn money for school and take pictures of life aboard the ship. The hours are long, the work backbreaking. Kate finds herself immersed in a gritty, harsh life, filled with alcohol, sex and rough people.The descriptions of the water and the rhythms of life on the boats are vividly portrayed. Sailor Girl is Kate’s coming of age story. She comes to terms with her relationships with parents and shipmates. I have to say I did not find Kate to be a character I can relate to. She remained attracted to alcohol and sex with abusive men throughout. The descriptions of Kate’s life and surroundings are noteworthy, but I found the book to be dreary and depressing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book tells the story of a confused college student who spends her summer working on freight liners on the Great Lakes. Kate, our protagonist, has gone to the boats to earn money, but she's also gone to escape her life: her seemingly too perfect sister, her parents' disappointment at her desire to become an artist, and an abusive boyfriend. On the boats Kate finds things that trouble her, like the rigid hierarchies, and the rampant sexism. But she also finds a substitute family, a group of people who care for one another in their own way. And Kate also finds danger. The aforementioned abusive boyfriend comes from the crew of her first boat, and Kate ultimately finds herself in more danger than she can possibly imagine. This is a book that tells an engaging story, but even more, this is a book about environment. Olson takes her reader to the lakes and their boats. We feel the storms, the waves, the tedium of the locks, and the residue cargoes leave behind. This is a world I didn't know existed, and Olson paints a brilliant picture. Kate is a spunky, likeable heroine, and she lives in a richly-created world. Olson creates a true sensory experience. The publisher, too, has created a sensory experience, as this is one of the most beautiful books I've had the pleasure of reading and holding. The text includes photographs and is printed on thick, textured paper. The inside covers are printed with color maps of the Great Lakes region. A pleasure to hold and a pleasure to read.
Book preview
Sailor Girl - Sheree-Lee Olson
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1