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Believe me when I say that I really wanted to love this novel. Like many others I was a big fan of McDaniel's debut novel, The Summer that Melted Everything - in fact it was one of my favourite novels of the year: the atmosphere of Breathed, Ohio (pronounced Breath Ed) felt perfectly evoked, the story of Sal and the locals was gripping and the writing was pitch perfect. So it's with great sadness that I'm reviewing this book unfavourably, but Betty had one too many issues which in the end I couldn't make myself overlook.

The novel follows the eponymous Betty, the third daughter (and fourth child) of the Carpenter family. Betty grows up in Breathed with her 5 siblings in a house from which the previous family disappeared, missing and presumed murdered due to the bullet holes found in the walls. Betty's father is Cherokee, her mother white, yet she is the only child with her father's dark hair and complexion. As a result Betty is the victim of merciless racism from kids at school, townspeople and even her own siblings. The bulk of the plot is made up of telling the story of Betty's life between the ages of 6/7 to 15, weaved together with tales of her siblings and their fates.

I note that the blurb mentions this to be the story of how Betty becomes a writer, but this almost felt tacked on and made up a very small portion of the story - yes, it was made clear that she liked words and a few of her poems were mentioned, but this thread didn't extend much beyond these small moments. The novel instead becomes a relentless account of all of the awful things that happen to Betty and her immediate family - I don't want to get too spoilery but these include (amongst many others) racism, incest, rape and multiple examples of animal abuse, with the latter in particular feeling like it was inserted just for shock value and one main incidence of this happened and then was never mentioned again. I just didn't buy any of it -- my take was that Betty is only truly loved by her two younger brothers and her father, and the narrative read like repetitive misery porn for the most part for this reader.

And now on to the writing. I found McDaniel's way with words to be captivating when I read her debut back in 2016, but the writing in Betty felt so incredibly overwrought and self-conscious and flowery, with faux-deep imagery which on closer examination lacks meaning. Someone was described as being "no meaner than a cold morning without socks". Sorry, what?!

That said, the book wasn't without some good moments. Betty's relationship with her two younger brothers was nicely done, and I did like her as a character. Looking at all the highly positive advance reviews it seems I'm an outlier with my views, but given that this was one of my most anticipated novels of the year I can't help but feel very disappointed.

Thank you Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.