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Cissy Funk
On the Depression era Colorado plains, there's nothing but dust and empty farms. It's an unforgiving background to the violence in Cissy Funk's life. She's alone on a scrap of a farm with her mother and brother, and her mother hasn't recovered from the death of Cissy's baby sister. She's turned cold, and mean, and she's turned against Cissy, singling her out, leaving bruises and a breaking heart.
When Cissy's Aunt Vera turns up, with her warm hugs and pretty clothes, it looks like there just might be hope on the horizon after all. Vera is determined to make sure Cissy is safe and loved, despite her sister in law, despite the hard times, despite her own fears.
But these hard times are more than failed crops and no work. There's a trouble in Cissy's family that no one is willing to tell her about, and it's threatening to bring her fragile happiness crashing down. When there's nothing but dirt, dust, and the faintest glimpse of delight, Cissy has to find the strength to grab onto what she can. Her family might not be what she thought it was, but maybe it can be exactly what she needs.
When Cissy's Aunt Vera turns up, with her warm hugs and pretty clothes, it looks like there just might be hope on the horizon after all. Vera is determined to make sure Cissy is safe and loved, despite her sister in law, despite the hard times, despite her own fears.
But these hard times are more than failed crops and no work. There's a trouble in Cissy's family that no one is willing to tell her about, and it's threatening to bring her fragile happiness crashing down. When there's nothing but dirt, dust, and the faintest glimpse of delight, Cissy has to find the strength to grab onto what she can. Her family might not be what she thought it was, but maybe it can be exactly what she needs.
191 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 24, 2001
69 people are currently reading
604 people want to read
About the author
Kim Taylor Blakemore
10 books571 followersKim writes historical novels that feature fierce, audacious, and often dangerous women. She writes about the thieves and servants, murderesses and mediums, grifters and frauds - the women with darker stories, tangled lies and hidden motives.
She is the author of the historical thrillers THE DECEPTION, Silver Falchion Award winner AFTER ALICE FELL, THE COMPANION, and the historical novels BOWERY GIRL, and CISSY FUNK, a WILLA Award winner for Best Young Adult novel. She also writes historical fiction featuring wild-willed women of the West under the pen name K.T. Blakemore.
She is a developmental editor, and founder of Novelitics, which provides workshops and community to writers in the United States and Canada.
She lives with her family and passel of rescue cats and dogs in the Pacific Northwest. She loves the rain, is afraid of scary movies, and thinks the best meal consists of a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
She is the author of the historical thrillers THE DECEPTION, Silver Falchion Award winner AFTER ALICE FELL, THE COMPANION, and the historical novels BOWERY GIRL, and CISSY FUNK, a WILLA Award winner for Best Young Adult novel. She also writes historical fiction featuring wild-willed women of the West under the pen name K.T. Blakemore.
She is a developmental editor, and founder of Novelitics, which provides workshops and community to writers in the United States and Canada.
She lives with her family and passel of rescue cats and dogs in the Pacific Northwest. She loves the rain, is afraid of scary movies, and thinks the best meal consists of a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 20, 2010
-An absolutely perfect novel that details life in depression era USA very well. Cissy, the main character is abused by her emotionally disturbed mother and is rescued by her Aunt Vera. They flee to Denver and meet up with Cissy’s father (who is not much better than the mother) and Vera’s dearest friend, Maxine. All is not what it seems but in the end love triumphs.
March 3, 2018
I’m trying to remember why I originally shelved this—was I going through a ‘books about wide-open spaces’ phase? I really don’t know. In any case, it’s the 1930s, and for Cissy, life is grim: she lives on a struggling, dust-whipped farm with her brother and her mother, the latter of whom cannot move beyond grief.
When Cissy’s aunt comes to take her away—to the big city, where Cissy’s father lives—things get easier, briefly, and then much harder. She’s a child, still, and there’s a lot that the adults around her aren’t saying…but even if she had all the information available, there aren’t easy answers: her mother resents her, her aunt doesn’t have stable enough work to support both herself and Cissy, and her father is by and large disinterested.
Some big things come out near the end of the book—so close to the end, actually, that I’d considered and discarded them as possibilities because I thought there wasn’t enough time left to explore them properly. And I would in fact have liked more time to go to those. But…assuming that I read this for the wide-open-spaces aspect, I think it delivered. Neither the farm nor the city is an ideal. The city is, to Cissy’s sheltered eyes, all glitz and glamour, but she soon sees that it can make for a hardscrabble life. The farm, too, makes for a hardscrabble life: land that could be beautiful but is too dry and barren to support anything like an easy life. Things change for her, and change again, and change once more. There’s a lot of story beyond the far reaches of the book.
When Cissy’s aunt comes to take her away—to the big city, where Cissy’s father lives—things get easier, briefly, and then much harder. She’s a child, still, and there’s a lot that the adults around her aren’t saying…but even if she had all the information available, there aren’t easy answers: her mother resents her, her aunt doesn’t have stable enough work to support both herself and Cissy, and her father is by and large disinterested.
Some big things come out near the end of the book—so close to the end, actually, that I’d considered and discarded them as possibilities because I thought there wasn’t enough time left to explore them properly. And I would in fact have liked more time to go to those. But…assuming that I read this for the wide-open-spaces aspect, I think it delivered. Neither the farm nor the city is an ideal. The city is, to Cissy’s sheltered eyes, all glitz and glamour, but she soon sees that it can make for a hardscrabble life. The farm, too, makes for a hardscrabble life: land that could be beautiful but is too dry and barren to support anything like an easy life. Things change for her, and change again, and change once more. There’s a lot of story beyond the far reaches of the book.
February 7, 2021
Cissy, the main character, is abused by her emotionally disturbed mother. Her Aunt Vera wants to come and rescue her and take her away from the family farm. There are a lot of secrets and lies between all of the adult characters and Cissy doesn't know who to turn to. Secrets begin to unravel and there just might be a chance for Cissy to have hope and feel safe after all.
February 16, 2021
Becoming
Cissy Funk is an easy read, with Cissy's letters summarizing her thoughts. Her moral code dealing with what's happening to and around her creates good tension. Although the reader guesses about motivators for the characters, one is surprised to be right. Surprise ending aligns with Costs moral code. Good, quick read.
Cissy Funk is an easy read, with Cissy's letters summarizing her thoughts. Her moral code dealing with what's happening to and around her creates good tension. Although the reader guesses about motivators for the characters, one is surprised to be right. Surprise ending aligns with Costs moral code. Good, quick read.
December 23, 2022
A Heartfelt Story of Growing Up
With wonderful characters and a setting that makes you feel you are there, Cissy Funk’s journey toward adulthood is touching and funny, part heartbreak and part triumph. The author deftly weaves together the storylines until the dramatic and inevitable conclusion. Loved it.
With wonderful characters and a setting that makes you feel you are there, Cissy Funk’s journey toward adulthood is touching and funny, part heartbreak and part triumph. The author deftly weaves together the storylines until the dramatic and inevitable conclusion. Loved it.
September 16, 2019
5 star
What a web of secrets and lies. A great page turner. You can feel the raw emotion of the characters.
What a web of secrets and lies. A great page turner. You can feel the raw emotion of the characters.
May 23, 2021
Different
This book was very good. A bit different than what I originally expected. You could predict the ending, not as suspenseful as I would have liked. A good read though.
This book was very good. A bit different than what I originally expected. You could predict the ending, not as suspenseful as I would have liked. A good read though.
Read
January 13, 2022Sweet story
A story of a young girl. searching for for a better life during desperate times in the dust bowl circa 1930s. Family secrets are revealed. Nice conclusion.
A story of a young girl. searching for for a better life during desperate times in the dust bowl circa 1930s. Family secrets are revealed. Nice conclusion.
February 22, 2022
Good read
Good read, what an innocent nieve teenage. I couldn't help but be a cheerleader for her. I will not give away the ending. I recommend this book.
Good read, what an innocent nieve teenage. I couldn't help but be a cheerleader for her. I will not give away the ending. I recommend this book.
March 9, 2017
I wanted to love this book. I adored Cissy; she was a strong resourceful young teen. But I felt like the relationships she had with the adults in the book was forced so that the author could reach the conclusion. I liked the writing style and the book moved at a nice even pace.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, but the opinion is all my own.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, but the opinion is all my own.
June 22, 2015
Cissy Funk book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it will change the lives and offer hope to the young adults who read it. That’s probably why it was a Willa Literary Award winner, the prestigious accolade named after Pulitzer Prize winner, Willa Cather. For the regular readers though, Cissy Funk is possibly one of the most endearing historical novels I’ve read in a long time! Although it seems to be positioned for young adults, I must say that as a person who has been on the planet over six decades, I was utterly charmed.
The main character, Cissy Funk, is a fully fleshed out young teen who is left to her own devices to figure out the world in which she has been neglected and emotionally abused by one parent and essentially abandoned by another. Her earliest guidepost is her brother, but he can only lend moral support. It’s 1935, and life across the country is diffcult, even harrowing. Despite this harsh reality, the tone of the story is overwhelmingly upbeat and positive. It takes the appearance of her Aunt Vera to fully help the young woman flesh out the trial and errors known as growing up. She adores Aunt Vera, who presents a real sign of hope in Cissy’s otherwise bleak life.
The book is interspersed with letters from our young heroine to what we first think is a fictional friend. As Cissy awaits an address for the friend that moved away, we see in her dawning adolescence the first stirrings of an ability to make something appear better than it really is. It’s a survival instinct, really, but one fully immersed in Cissy’s fertile and refreshing, abundantly imaginative mind.
Upon Cissy’s discovery of Aunt Vera’s unconventional relationship with another women, opens our heroine’s eyes to all the forms love can take, as well as all the betrayals and disappointments it can produce. Cissy’s expectations are pretty low, and with good historic reason. But she’s not a whiner. She accepts as fact what she cannot change or ameliorate with fantasy. The surprise ending was not completely expected although in retrospect it made perfect sense.
The author, Kim Taylor Blakemore, has captured that singular voice of a young adult traversing the often contradictory, even hurtful but sometimes magical terrain of the other adults. The dialog for all the characters is authentic. The development of their personas is thorough and reflective of a writer who can inhabit her characters so well that the reader finds the same seamless immersion experience in this gentle page-turning novel. That’s what a classic does. Highly recommended for your young adult—and you!.
The main character, Cissy Funk, is a fully fleshed out young teen who is left to her own devices to figure out the world in which she has been neglected and emotionally abused by one parent and essentially abandoned by another. Her earliest guidepost is her brother, but he can only lend moral support. It’s 1935, and life across the country is diffcult, even harrowing. Despite this harsh reality, the tone of the story is overwhelmingly upbeat and positive. It takes the appearance of her Aunt Vera to fully help the young woman flesh out the trial and errors known as growing up. She adores Aunt Vera, who presents a real sign of hope in Cissy’s otherwise bleak life.
The book is interspersed with letters from our young heroine to what we first think is a fictional friend. As Cissy awaits an address for the friend that moved away, we see in her dawning adolescence the first stirrings of an ability to make something appear better than it really is. It’s a survival instinct, really, but one fully immersed in Cissy’s fertile and refreshing, abundantly imaginative mind.
Upon Cissy’s discovery of Aunt Vera’s unconventional relationship with another women, opens our heroine’s eyes to all the forms love can take, as well as all the betrayals and disappointments it can produce. Cissy’s expectations are pretty low, and with good historic reason. But she’s not a whiner. She accepts as fact what she cannot change or ameliorate with fantasy. The surprise ending was not completely expected although in retrospect it made perfect sense.
The author, Kim Taylor Blakemore, has captured that singular voice of a young adult traversing the often contradictory, even hurtful but sometimes magical terrain of the other adults. The dialog for all the characters is authentic. The development of their personas is thorough and reflective of a writer who can inhabit her characters so well that the reader finds the same seamless immersion experience in this gentle page-turning novel. That’s what a classic does. Highly recommended for your young adult—and you!.
May 20, 2015
I was so excited to read this book. Historical fiction is my favorite; adult, YA, or junior fiction, it doesn't matter. Depression era? Even better. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry has been my favorite book for about 20 years now. I also love Out of the Dust.
When I received the book, I began reading immediately. And fell in love with the story- dust storms, struggles, heart break. And then the story went off on a tangent- a move to Denver, a different kind of struggle, and several 'secrets' that I figured out early on.
I didn't 'love' it. I liked it, but the absolute love for the story that I felt in the first 30, 40, maybe 50 pages faded. Perhaps I built it up too much in my head, so I was sure to be let down unless it reached the perfection that is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I don't know. What I do know is that I didn't love it.
It is a good story. There are several elements that are unusual for the time period. I would recommend reading it.
I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.
When I received the book, I began reading immediately. And fell in love with the story- dust storms, struggles, heart break. And then the story went off on a tangent- a move to Denver, a different kind of struggle, and several 'secrets' that I figured out early on.
I didn't 'love' it. I liked it, but the absolute love for the story that I felt in the first 30, 40, maybe 50 pages faded. Perhaps I built it up too much in my head, so I was sure to be let down unless it reached the perfection that is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I don't know. What I do know is that I didn't love it.
It is a good story. There are several elements that are unusual for the time period. I would recommend reading it.
I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.
July 5, 2015
A very enjoyable read. I wouldn't hesitate to read more books by this author. I won this book as part of a goodreads giveaway and probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise, but I'm glad that I did. It was easy to read because you wanted to keep reading to see how things would unfold. Great little read!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews