REVIEW: "The All-American" by Susie Finkbeiner
About the Book:
✦ Title: The All-American
✦ Author: Susie Finkbeiner
✦ Genre: Christian Historical Fiction
✦ Series: No, a standalone novel
✦ Recommend for: ages 15/16+
My Personal Rating
When Bertha's father is accused of being part of the Communist Party by the House Un-American Activities Committee, life comes crashing down on them. Disgraced and shunned, the Hardings move to a small town to start over where the only one who knows them is shy Uncle Matthew. But dreams are hard to kill, and when Bertha gets a chance to try out for the Workington Sweet Peas, she packs her bags for an adventure she'll never forget.
💭My Thoughts
“No one had ever told me how terrifying it was when a dream actually came true.”
This was such a neat, touching book...but those last few chapters😭😭😭
First off, I am not a baseball fan. At all. For one, it doesn't make any kind of sense to me. And it's extremely boring. Not to mention my home team is like the worst in the league. However, the reviews for this book were very good, and a friend told me that I don't have to like the sport to enjoy this book. And I love reading stories that take place in my state. So I decided to give it a try, and wow, I don't regret it!
I loved the 1950s Detroit setting. It gave the book such a charming, vintage, nostalgic feel to it that I really enjoyed. And of course, it had a distinct Michigan flavor, with mentions of Vernor's ginger soda, the Detroit Tigers, Ford vehicles, and multiple cities that I happen to know quite well 😉 Those elements were so much fun. Also, I had never really learned a lot about the Red Scare, and this book gave an intimate, fascinating look into that part of history.
I really liked the characters, and the Hardings truly felt like a real family. At first, I got slightly annoyed at Flossie towards the beginning and how she wanted to do things that she shouldn’t, but she eventually grew on me and reminded me of my own sister in a lot of ways 😂 I also connected quite a bit with Bertha- despite me *not* being crazy about baseball- and, on that note, I really enjoyed that the story is told through both sisters’ alternating POVs.
Around the time I started this, I realized that I was SO burnt out on unrealistic romance plots and just really wanted something different, so I was so happy and appreciative to find out that this novel didn’t really have romance as the main point at all. The story centering on the importance of family and innocent friendship rather than romantic relationship was super refreshing!
One of my absolute favorite parts of this book however, was the sibling content. Bertha and Flossie’s relationship with their (sweet 🥹) older brother and his wife was absolutely precious and heartwarming and lovely to see…even despite Flossie’s occasional snarky comments about her sister-in-law 😅 Oh Flossie.
On that ending though…I actually guessed what would happen fairly early in the book, but that didn’t change the fact that it wrecked me. Oh, those last few chapters were so emotional. I don’t really know how I feel about not-perfectly-happy endings in books, but in this particular one, it was very well done. However, I did wish the epilogue was longer- I really was hoping to see what happens with Bertha and Leo’s sweet friendship! Also, I was a little disappointed that the faith content was pretty light, but what was there was woven in very naturally, and there was a good, hopeful message presented throughout. And although this book wasn’t super lighthearted or fluffy, there was actually a bit of humor in, which I really enjoyed as well. (Chapter 40 🤣).
There were a couple little parts/comments here and there, as well as me not exactly knowing how I felt about the ending, that caused me to drop my rating from a 4.5-5 star to a 4, but I can honestly say that I loved this book overall and definitely see myself rereading it in the future. It was such a well-written, sweet, special family story that I will be thinking about for a while. As a matter of fact, I think a sequel would be wonderful…please, author? 🥺 I would love to check out more books by this author as well because they all look so good, but I’m just a little hesitant because I’m not certain that they’re as clean as I prefer 👀
⚠️ Some content notes
Death of loved ones, alcohol, bullying. No real language, but words/phrases throughout such as “doggone/doggone it” (x12+), “Geeze Louise”, “Merciful Heavens”, “What in Heaven’s name”, “What in the Sam Hill”, “What the hay”, “What the dickens”, “Heck” (x8), “Shoot” (x5), “Darn” (x5), “Shucks”, and a cut off “Hell”; several mentions of books with cussing and questionable content in them & a young character reading them when she wasn’t supposed to; other cussing said but unwritten; a lady is called a wicked with; a couple kisses with no details.
🌹 Quotes
“Every soul finds difficulty from time to time. Some of it light, some of it too heavy to bear. And sometimes we don’t understand the ways of God through our suffering, but we have little more to do under the weight than trust that we don’t carry it alone.”
“I can’t change the pain, but I can fight to remember the good in everything.”
“No one escapes difficulty. Nobody. But when it comes, we have a few choices to make. We can become angry, bitter, hard-hearted. Or we can look our troubles right in the face and decide that we won’t let them steal our hope.”
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Bookishly yours,
Lottie M.
