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“When I was your age, I wanted to be someone else too.��
“Who’d you wanna be, Dad?��
“Someone important. You know why I call you Little Indian? So that you know you’re already someone important.��

This is the story of Betty Carpenter and her family as they move from place to place until they finally settle in Breathed, Ohio on the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

The Carpenters don’t fit in anywhere. Betty’s father, Landon, is Cherokee and her mother, Alka, is white. Betty, of all of her siblings inherited the most of her fathers Cherokee features finds it hard to blend in and come to terms with her place in the world. She finds solace and comfort in her family and Landon’s stories as he teaches his children to love the land and to never forget their ancestors and where they came from.

Through the years of poverty and struggle in Breathed, Betty witnesses horrors of cruelty and violence. Needing an escape she writes these events down, tells the stories of her family’s dark past and present, and buries it deep in the ground.

We follow the family from the 1930s �� the moment Landon and Alka meet �� until Betty, their youngest daughter enters adulthood.



This book was equally hard to read and magical at the same time. The first thing that swept me away was the writing. It was enchanting and lyricle. Poetic and mesmerising.

I don’t know if it’s because this book was more personal to the author or what? �� but the way she wrote the setting and the characters was spectacular. It all felt so real and the characters each felt so distinct.

Some characters I hated with all my guts (if you know, you know 👀). And others I loved with all my heart: first and foremost being Landon, Betty’s dad.

It was such a pleasure reading about him. Everything he taught his kids, his stories. I just- *sniffles* �� love him so much.

‘I realized then that not only did Dad need us to believe his stories, we needed to believe them as well. To believe in unripe stars and eagles able to do extraordinary things. What it boiled down to was a frenzied hope that there was more to life than the reality around us. Only then could we claim a destiny we did not feel cursed to.��

Betty herself was also such an amazing character. Her resilience in the face all she witnessed at such a young age had me astounded. This small girl, had to bear the burden of others and still she was so pure and brave.

As I said there were difficult scenes in this book. Personally I dislike stumbling onto a scene and having it take me off guard. I’d prefer to know what I’m getting into. So I feel I should warn you if you’re going to pick this up that there are scenes of incestuous rape. I’ll leave the content warnings below 👇.

Betty was filled with hard truths and brutal honesty. But don’t let that discourage you from picking this up. I am glad I went into Betty with my eyes open. It would have upset me more if I had not expected the more graphic scenes, but I knew to look out for them.

This book is in fact based on the true story of the authors mother, Betty. Reading her dedication and her acknowledgements at the end of the book touched my heart.

I am going to try to get my hands on the authors debut novel, The Summer that Melted Everything, which was also set in the same town. I am officially obsessed with Tiffany McDaniel’s writing!!

Betty is one of the best books I’ve read this year and will be added to my favourites list! And I will talk about it non stop to the point where everyone will be annoyed with me so they’ll read the book just to get me to be quiet ��

CONTENT WARNINGS: violence; child abuse; animal abuse; incest; rape; suicide; abortion

« Thank you to the publishers for sending me this copy for review »