Angels on the Roof

Angels on the Roof is a very touching book to me it made me wonder more about my family and not to lie to my mother like her mother did to shelby about her dad. I would recemend this book to anybody because it is very good with explaining it's characters, it's plot, and it keeps on wanting you to flip the page and not set it down.

One cannot truly understand another without walking one mile in their shoes. This saying is displayed in Martha Moore's novel, Angels on the Roof. This novel takes place during the protagonist's freshman year of high school. The protagonist, Shelby and her mother, Zoe, have a missing link in their mother-daughter-relationship. That link is Shelby's father. Then to make things more complicated for Shelby, her mom is taking Shelby on one of those over-night-impulse trips she gets all the time. Shelby thinks she is going to have to move for the thousandth time, and she is determined to finish 9th grade in one place. So the lucky place they are going to "visit" is Red Valley, an empty town with country hicks. Shelby is miserable the minute she gets there and she wants desperately for the day to end, so they can go home. But things happen that make Shelby want to stay longer. This is an enjoyable novel for pre-teens and teenagers, because it deals with issues that every pre-teen or teenager deals with. Most people can relate to Shelby, which could make someone think that there is someone else who went through the same issues, even though the book was a fictional novel. Here is a good sampling of this idea: "Over the years my mother's had a lot of phases: Ceramics, Sand Candles, Designing with Buttons, and Denim Art, just to name a few. I figured Georgia O'Keeffe would pass and we wouldn't even have to have a garage sale to get rid of her. In the meantime, my mother couldn't get enough. Every day when she came home from work, she sat in the recliner with her lap full of art books. She read out loud whether I was listening or not, spouting off a million loony ideas about an artist who was born over a hundred years ago. I mean, she'd be a skeleton by now." (Page 2) This quote demonstrates how Shelby, thinks that her mom is off her rocker, but at the same time, she still loves her mom and goes along with her mother's bizarre obsessions. I thought the book was a good short novel that one doesn't have to analyze. All one has to do is just read and enjoy it. The understanding that Shelby and Zoe start to reach near the middle of the book makes the reader come to a sense of peacefulness that brings relief in the middle of this mother-and-daughter mess.

I think every teenager should read this book or if you ever didnot know something about your family you will probably totally relateto Shelby. My english teacher gave us a book list and I just picked this one up without really knowing what it was about. I read it in 4 days. To me it did not seem like a book report book to me. Shelby does not know her father at all. She also goes to Texas for spring break, rather than the beach with her friend Roo and her family. In Texas she meets the woman who took care of her mother and other kids. She thinks this place is stupid because there is nothing out there and does not want to go in the beginning but she turns out to find a bunch more about her family than expected.

This book is fantastic! From the moment I opened the book, i was captured into the world that Martha Moore wrote about. I understood the characters and what they went through. Highly Recommended!

As a former English teacher I wish I had been able to use "Angels On The Roof" with my classes. What begins as a teenage comedy turns to a mystery, a search for past and future, a "Catcher in the Rye" for today's teens. But what is so moving is that like many classics, the novel can be read on many levels. It's not only a search for self but for sexual realization. It's not only a mystery as to why Shelby's mother keeps taking her from town to town in the middle of the night, it's a coming of age story. "Angels On The Roof" is as multi-layered as the canyons in which the story takes place. Her use of metaphor and image from red rock country to Georgia O'Keeffe pictures, from Salinger to Shakespeare makes "Angels On The Roof" an enriching experience for all, one that not only adds to the life of a young person, but adds to the experience of an adult. Humor, mystery, search for self, coming of age, literate, insightful. What more could a teacher ask of a book? Martha Moore, where were you when I needed you? (At least I have you now.)