My overall impression of this book can be summed up in one word -
ugly. The book is about ugliness - the physical ugliness of one
character and the ugly personalities of most everyone else in the
book.
The story is about Elva, a young girl living in a small town in
Nova Scotia in the early 1900's and she is the physically ugly
character. She has a harsh mother, a completely distasteful father
and a self centred half sister. Elva wants to be like her sister
and is, in many ways, the typical tag along little sister. Her
sister is unpleasant to her, not because she's the tag along little
sister, but because Elva is deformed and she, her sister, is
beautiful. The writing is alright (not great, not bad) and the
writer has a distinctive style. I didn't really enjoy his style of
writing, but it may appeal to others. I did not enjoy this book,
mainly because of the theme and the fact that I felt worse after
reading it, which is fine in some novels if the reader has learned
something important or significant. This was not the case for Miss
Elva.
Elva liked to draw and I suppose her solace was supposed to be her
art. I felt that this part of her character was contrived to
provide an ending that was meant to be redemptive but for me, fell
flat.
I would not recommend this book.