Ash

Using colloquial language typical to small-town Mainers, which can only be referred to as "Hillbilly-Boone" talk, Wesley Libby pains a vivid picture through his journal entries of how he and his family live their everyday lives with their special son, Ash. Ash, who was once the smart, tough, loving and musically talented older brother that Wesley admired had now turned into Mr. Hyde. Now he has become violent, uncivil, and insulting, which makes Wesley uneasy around his presence. But what caused this Dr. Jekel/Mr. Hyde personality? Schizoid tended. Now, through his daily diary entries, Wesley plays detective and tries to figure out what sparked Ash's schizoid tended. All in an attempt to get his former older brother back. On one account, Wesley recalls a moment when he saw Ash banging his head against a door in order to stop the voices in his head. In order to witness first hand how the entire Libby family deals with the bizarre change in their son with their feelings of confusion, sorrow and guilt, read the 160 page book Ash: A Novel, by Lisa Rowe Fraustino (Grass and Sky).In this novel, Lisa Rowe Fraustino writes the book in the mindset of a 15 year old, small-town Maine resident with bad grammar, which makes you feel as if you were reading an actual dairy. With the jokes made by Wesley in order to poke fun at his older sister Deena, the book pulled me in and made me picture what the sister looks and acts like. So by the end of the novel, I felt as if I had already met the family. It's mainly because of the bad grammar, which played a significant role in bringing the book to life, that I enjoyed the book as much as I did. If you like books that grab you attention from the begining, yet are not to complicated to understand, then Ash: A Novel by Lisa Rowe Fraustino is the book for you. Even though the book is 160 pages, the ending is not a flat cut-off.

This was a wonderful novel for any age. It's hard to belive that real families can have this very same thing happen to them.