Review: My Ruby Slippers by Tracey Seeley

Goodreads:  Sure, there's no place like home - but what if you can't really pinpoint where home is?  By the time she was nine, Tracey Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses.  Her father's dreams of movie stardom, stoked by a series of affairs, kept the family on edge, and on the move, until he up and left.  Thirty years later, settled in what seems like a charmed life in San Francisco, a diagnosis of cancer and the betrayal of a lover shake Seeley to her roots - roots she is suddenly determined to search out. 

Seeley finds herself in a Kansas that defies memory, a place far more complex and elusive than the sum of its cultural myths.  On back roads and in her many back years, Seeley also finds unexpected forgiveness for her errant father, and, in the face of mortality, a sense of what it means to be rooted in place, to dwell deeply in the only life we have.


Kritters Thoughts:  Seeley writes this love story to Kansas.  A cross between a heartfelt memoir and the language of an artistic novel, this book confused me and didn't leave me intrigued for the next page.  A fan of the memoir genre, I wasn't captured by this book.

Bouncing between the present and her past memories, I couldn't follow her through her journey to find her center.  I wanted to be swept away by the stories of the prairie and fall in love with the Kansas she was rediscovering, but I couldn't find myself beside her, instead I was lost along the way.

If you enjoy a novel full of intense language and have a heart for Kansas, this book would be perfect for a day sitting by the fireplace. 

Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Pages:  208

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.