Review of The Strength of Weeds

The Strength of Weeds

Author: M. M. Blyth

Publisher: M. M. Blyth

Publication Date: November 2020

Ivy and Rose Green are inseparable. Ivy, the narrator of the story, is almost ten and Rose is almost seventeen. Sisters of four boys and daughters of a widowed father, their lives in the backwaters of 1930s Louisiana are far from easy. When the local mine is shut down and their family is left in desperate need of money, Rose is faced with a daunting adventure: finding a husband. Unwilling to let her sister approach marriage without her help, Ivy agrees to accompany her out of the bayou and into the next chapter of her life. Leaving home for the first time and heading to the bustling city of New Orleans, the Green sisters find themselves farther from their simple lives than they ever dreamed. Balancing the excitement and joy of exploring a new world with the gravity of their situation, Ivy and Rose grow closer than ever as their time together draws to a close.

Ivy is an apt and engaging narrator. Able to convey both sisters’ awe and emotional turmoil, Ivy chronicles their steps away from childhood as she narrates the experiences they choose and the circumstances forced upon them. Blyth conveys Ivy’s growing independence through conversations with her family, but also her lingering naivete through her enamored perception of her limited world. Rose is both a best friend and a revered guide to her little sister. At sixteen, she has a broader perception of life’s disappointments than Ivy. However, she is still eager to experience everything she can before marriage constrains her. 

Ivy and Rose describe a Louisiana that is both sultry and struggling, conveying a sense of beautiful ruin. The division between rural and urban Louisiana is stark; the culture and glamour of New Orleans enraptures the girls, awakening them to their impoverished upbringing. Ivy’s abject wonderment at everything more than an hour’s walk from home leads her to describe each detail, immersing readers in her perspective. She provides more than sensory immersion; each vignette is expressed with eloquent fervor, charged with Ivy’s sadness, joy, curiosity, or silliness. Her exuberance is conveyed in a manner that enriches her story rather than burdening it. The one problem that arises with heavy description is Ivy’s extensive vocabulary, which seems to belie both her age and upbringing. In the first couple chapters of The Strength of Weeds, Blyth struggles to create a narrator that can both fit her backwater setting and describe it well. However, as she settles into Ivy’s voice, the notional disparity dissipates; Ivy becomes both credible and compelling. Over the course of the story, Ivy illustrates her home with detail, precision, elegance, and youthful energy. I recommend The Strength of Weeds to YA historical fiction readers. In Ivy and Rose, Blyth gives us characters we can understand and appreciate, bringing their own lives closer to our own and inviting us into their perspective, place, and time.   

- D. K. Nuray