Something Terrible Happened

by Barbara Ann Porte

Twelve-year-old Gillian is sent away from her mother who is dying of AIDS to live with her relatives in Tennessee.

Genres: Realistic Fiction

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick reading, well-written story of Gillian, a biracial child who is sent to live with her white father’s brother and sister in law after her mother dies of AIDS .Interesting style, narrative interspersed with folk tales

[Sungeun Ahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. For the first few chapter, I thought it was boring, but as I keep reading, I could understand the main character’s feeling, even though I never was in her situation. Main character’s name is Gillian. The book starts with Gillian’s life, and her family, but suddenly bad things keep happened to her. This book is like it gave reader and Gillian a little bit of hope, but the hope disappeared and book gave another little hope and it also disappeared. Terrible thing starts with a terrible news that Gillian’s mom gets an AIDS. Gillian’s mom was an Indian women, so Gillian’s mom had to pay much more money than white, and she couldn’t get a good treatment from the hospital. As I read this book, I learned that still there are lots of racism, and people who don’t have a power to fight against those racism have to bare with the situation.