| A Ladder of Years is the story of a housewife who walks out on her family one day. She hitches a ride and ends up in this small town where she lives starkly in a boarding house and works as a secretary for minimum wage. This is a huge switch from the sprawling home of a doctor's wife, but she revels in the simplicity of this new life. No longer Mrs. Grinstead, she's now Miss Grinstead. She transforms from extrovert to introvert and back again over the course of a year. Early on, her family finds out where she is and writes to her but mostly respects her privacy and her new life choice. She's at once hurt and relieved by this. She grows back into her outgoing self by the book's end, conveniently abdicating responsibilty for running away, which left her family with serious issues to work out. She ends up running away yet again, but this time running back to something. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book? - thoughtful Time/era of story - 1980's-1999 Internal struggle/realization? Yes Struggle over Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Main Character Gender - Female Profession/status: Age: - 40's-50's Ethnicity/Nationality Main Adversary Identity: - Male Age: - 40's-50's Profession/status: How sensitive is this character? Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor Intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 () Small town? Yes Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee Writing Style Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
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