osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2023-07-31 08:53 am
osprey_archer) wrote2023-07-31 08:53 am
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Book Review: Heaven to Betsy
I read the first four Betsy-Tacy books as a child, then stopped, because my library didn’t have the fifth book, Heaven to Betsy. Evidently, this is not uncommon: Heaven to Betsy has been controversial since it was first published, as the book features Betsy converting from her original Baptist faith to Episcopalianism.
This sort of thing is the reason why American fiction is so rigidly divided between inspirational fiction and fiction that wouldn’t touch religion with a ten foot pole: who wants to risk getting kicked out of all the libraries? And the Betsy-Tacy series as a whole, and this book in particular, shows why this split is unfortunate: religion is an important thread in many people’s lives, and it impoverishes literature to yank out an aspect of life entirely, or to relegate it to books that are meant to convert readers (or at least strengthen their already-existing faith).
Betsy-Tacy is not trying to convert you to anything. It’s just depicting religion as a part of people’s lives, which it is, and not only on a spiritual level, but also on a social/aesthetic one. In fact, Betsy’s conversion is largely aesthetic: she just likes Episcopalian services better.
But, although the reason behind it is unfortunate, it’s probably just as well that I didn’t continue past Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown in my youth. In Heaven to Betsy, Betsy discovers boys, and I probably would have thrown the book across the room. Boys, boys, boys, boys! Why are even books about girls books about boys!!!
(Betsy’s friend Tacy, the only sensible girl in Deep Valley, remains uninterested in boys. The others tease her about this, but in the kindly good-natured way one teases a beloved friend about, say, having peculiar taste in music. It’s odd, but there’s no sense that anyone is going, “Um, is Tacy a lesbian? Should we be dropping her from the Crowd and spreading rumors all over the school like Regina George in Mean Girls?”)
Reading it now, though, I really appreciate the way that Lovelace treats the romantic elements of the book. As with religion, she takes a down-to-earth view of adolescent romance. There’s no grand romance here. Betsy is genuinely into boys, but she also sees boys as a way to enhance her social status; frets that the boys only like her as a friend, then frets when the wrong boy likes her romantically; gets an enormous crush, suffers greatly when her crush starts going with another girl (there’s a great scene where Betsy, dying inside as she watches her crush and his new girl, repeatedly informs the entire sleighing party that she’s never had so much fun in her life!), and then just gets over it.
(We do also meet Betsy’s future husband, who is of course based on Lovelace’s own husband, whom Lovelace didn’t meet till she was in her twenties, and I think it’s very cute that she loved him so much that she wanted to insert him into her life a decade early. Although this is also very wise from a shipping standpoint! You gotta introduce the real love interest first, even if in this book he and Betsy barely interact.)
Also, reading about Betsy’s social life is just so much fun. She has a large and active group of friends, and they’re always up to something: Halloween parties, bobsled and skating parties, making fudge and singing by the piano and just generally having a wonderful time! A wonderful time for the reader, as well. The Betsy-Tacy books are so many things, but one of them is just plain fun, and that above all is probably why they endure.
This sort of thing is the reason why American fiction is so rigidly divided between inspirational fiction and fiction that wouldn’t touch religion with a ten foot pole: who wants to risk getting kicked out of all the libraries? And the Betsy-Tacy series as a whole, and this book in particular, shows why this split is unfortunate: religion is an important thread in many people’s lives, and it impoverishes literature to yank out an aspect of life entirely, or to relegate it to books that are meant to convert readers (or at least strengthen their already-existing faith).
Betsy-Tacy is not trying to convert you to anything. It’s just depicting religion as a part of people’s lives, which it is, and not only on a spiritual level, but also on a social/aesthetic one. In fact, Betsy’s conversion is largely aesthetic: she just likes Episcopalian services better.
But, although the reason behind it is unfortunate, it’s probably just as well that I didn’t continue past Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown in my youth. In Heaven to Betsy, Betsy discovers boys, and I probably would have thrown the book across the room. Boys, boys, boys, boys! Why are even books about girls books about boys!!!
(Betsy’s friend Tacy, the only sensible girl in Deep Valley, remains uninterested in boys. The others tease her about this, but in the kindly good-natured way one teases a beloved friend about, say, having peculiar taste in music. It’s odd, but there’s no sense that anyone is going, “Um, is Tacy a lesbian? Should we be dropping her from the Crowd and spreading rumors all over the school like Regina George in Mean Girls?”)
Reading it now, though, I really appreciate the way that Lovelace treats the romantic elements of the book. As with religion, she takes a down-to-earth view of adolescent romance. There’s no grand romance here. Betsy is genuinely into boys, but she also sees boys as a way to enhance her social status; frets that the boys only like her as a friend, then frets when the wrong boy likes her romantically; gets an enormous crush, suffers greatly when her crush starts going with another girl (there’s a great scene where Betsy, dying inside as she watches her crush and his new girl, repeatedly informs the entire sleighing party that she’s never had so much fun in her life!), and then just gets over it.
(We do also meet Betsy’s future husband, who is of course based on Lovelace’s own husband, whom Lovelace didn’t meet till she was in her twenties, and I think it’s very cute that she loved him so much that she wanted to insert him into her life a decade early. Although this is also very wise from a shipping standpoint! You gotta introduce the real love interest first, even if in this book he and Betsy barely interact.)
Also, reading about Betsy’s social life is just so much fun. She has a large and active group of friends, and they’re always up to something: Halloween parties, bobsled and skating parties, making fudge and singing by the piano and just generally having a wonderful time! A wonderful time for the reader, as well. The Betsy-Tacy books are so many things, but one of them is just plain fun, and that above all is probably why they endure.
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Okay: I am going to read these! Too good not to.
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And it is so nice that Tacy's stolid disinterest in boys is treated as "Well, that's how Tacy is and why shouldn't she be that way?".
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