Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

First published: August 18, 2020
Genre: historical fiction, coming of age
Trigger warnings: rape, sexual assault, racially-motivated violence, racial slurs, suicidal ideation, self-harm, child abuse, incest, homophobia, murder, abortion, death, animal abuse/cruelty
Short description:
A young Betty Carpenter, born in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, grows up amidst poverty and violence. Despite the harsh realities, Betty finds solace in nature and her father’s stories. As family secrets emerge, she turns to writing to cope with the pain. Inspired by her mother’s life, Tiffany McDaniel’s novel tells Betty’s poignant and magical story, establishing her as a significant voice in American fiction.

Wow, where do I even begin? Betty absolutely wrecked me in the best way possible. The first few pages are already hints of how heavy this story would be, whispering for you to run away from it, but girl, it has this tight grip you just kenat. I felt everything – heartbreak, love, grief, disgust, resilience. It was tbh emotionally draining, but the end filled my heart a lot of love for life, for family, for being a daughter, a mom, a woman.

The writing? Stunning. Every sentence felt like poetry, but not the kind that’s flowery or overdone—just deeply honest and beautiful. And the way McDaniel wove in themes of family, identity, racism, and generational trauma was nothing short of masterful. It’s a heavy read, no doubt, but every moment felt necessary and real.

I don’t know the last time a book made me feel so much for its characters, like I genuinely wanted to reach into the pages and hug them (or yell at some of them).

This is one of those books that doesn’t just tell a story; it changes you.

Are you familiar with Cat’s and Nicole’s podcast, 2 Steps back? It’s available on Spotify and their video pods are also being uploaded on Youtube. And I really love these girls for their recommendations like this one, Betty by Tiffany McDaniel.

So, I just finished reading it and it’s not even a rollercoaster ride. Yeah, I know we book reviewers are always using that term for books sooooo goood we want you to read it. This one though, is super good, but I don’t know if I am to recommend it because it is super heavy — complete with all the ups, downs, and twists that make you scream. They’re predictable anyways (if you’re like me who’s nega and has solid trust issues), but that’s what make it even worse!

"The heaviest thing in the world is a man on top of you when you don’t want him to be."

Tiffany McDaniel, Betty

I really want to explore and discuss more my thought about the book, as I was very limited by my vlog review structure (lol) cos I don’t want to bore you with hours of rants and whatnots. But since I am a keyboard warrior and you chose to be here because, I assume, you like reading, I will indulge you of all Betty here and let me know if you also have the same or other thoughts cos I am dying to talk about it with someone.

Same with Cat and Nicole, I find it super cool and it really makes more sense to talk about the characters of the story as it’s character-driven. I am definitely encouraging you to go to Spotify or Youtube and listen to these gorgeous girls cos they explained it better and super smoothly.

I will talk about the biggest trigger. As a woman, a daughter, a sister, a mom. This is one of if not the biggest and worst pain to encounter.

I will talk about the triggers, or at least some of them instead. How the characters faced it, and the challenges they encountered, how they reacted on it and my reaction and thoughts about them.

This book didn’t pull any punches when it comes to the brutal realities of rape and sexual assault rooting from incest. INCEST, people. As disgusting as they were, they’re not just random events; they’re woven into the fabric of Betty’s life and her family’s history.

Betty and her sisters, along with their mother, faced some seriously dark times. The book lays it all out there, showing how these traumatic experiences leave deep emotional and psychological scars. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s heartbreaking, mapapa-PI ka. But it’s also a powerful testament to their resilience.

One of the toughest parts to read was how these women deal with the guilt, shame, and the pressure to keep everything a secret. These girls didn’t just survive; they each found their ways to process the pain. Alka, being her bitter, negative, real-talk-ing her family ‘cos yes, it is a cruel world we’re living in. Fraya, by her beautiful yet haunting music that were really cries for help but very subtly everybody had no idea. Flossie, being her jolly, ambitious, and proud self who tried so hard to push the memory aside by convincing herself that what happened to her was something to be excited about. And Betty, despite not experincing it first-hand, witnessed, heard, and absorbed all the trauma her girls were facing since she was a kid.

The way McDaniel handles these themes is intense, but it’s done with a lot of care and depth. It’s a tough read, no doubt, but it’s also incredibly moving and empowering.

Imagine how many women are experiencing this in real life? Worse, it’s not even about the year. A lot are still happening at this hour.

View my vlog about Betty!

characters

atmosphere

writing

plot

intrigue

logic

enjoyment

I am using the CAWPILE rating system, though please remember a reader’s taste may change from time to time, so I’m not sure if you can trust me here unless this was a recent read. Leaving my ratings anyways because this was totally how I felt the time I read this book. *winks*

betty is a very emotional read, and the very cruel content may affect your reading experience. Please do consider reading the CW. I know Reading head-on with the element of surprise is a lot more exciting, but it’s better to know your triggers so it won’t affect you or the piece which is playing as a voice to many.

Here are other reads if you liked or are interested with Betty

Click the book covers to go to Goodreads.

By Tiffany McDaniel
Explores Native American identity
Love, sacrifice, resilience

The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984:
the year a heatwave scorched the small town of Breathed, Ohio.
The year he became friends with the devil.

When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. They especially didn’t expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy.

Fielding, the son of Autopsy, finds the boy outside the courthouse and brings him home, and he is welcomed into the Bliss family. The Blisses believe the boy, who calls himself Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. Then, as a series of strange incidents implicate Sal — and riled by the feverish heatwave baking the town from the inside out — there are some around town who start to believe that maybe Sal is exactly who he claims to be.

But whether he’s a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child — and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town.

Devastatingly beautiful, The Summer That Melted Everything is a captivating story about community, redemption, and the dark places where evil really lies.

Add on Goodreads >

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.

In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.

Add on Goodreads >

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.

Add on Goodreads >