Small Damages

Kenzie is in her final year of school when she falls pregnant.  Her father dead and the baby’s father ‘going to Yale’ her mother arranges for her to go to Spain where she can have the baby and another couple will adopt.  Kenzie is not happy about this.

As she spends time on a remote farm where they breed prize bulls for fighting, she looks back on her life and considers her baby’s future and gradually becomes involved with the inhabitants of the farm and their strange intertwined lives.

The theme is love and its many faces, passion, security, maternal, teenage.  Kenzie realises that although she thought Kevin, the baby’s father was the most important thing for her, his ambitions were much more selfish and he easily abandons her. None of the people living on the farm are blood relatives and yet all are bound by love.

The book give a loving picture of Spain, you can imagine the heat, the shimmering stark countryside, the food that is so central to her life both in America and Spain.  It is a very American image of Spain, bulls, food, gypsies, beautiful women and brooding passion.  Hemingway is mentioned a couple of times,  and his influence on Kenzie, a creative writing major, can be seen in the writing style and the imagery.

An interesting book that will appeal to the more thoughtful teenage girl.