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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | ALL | Young Adult | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Gallaher Village Public Library | ALL | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Hurricane Public Library | ALL | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Milton Public Library | ALL | Young Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A teen girl on a quest to find her long-lost mother finds herself on a journey of self-discovery in Kristy Dallas Alley's moving YA debut, The Ballad of Ami Miles .
Raised in isolation at Heavenly Shepherd, her family's trailer-dealership-turned-survival compound, Ami Miles knows that she was lucky to be born into a place of safety after the old world ended and the chaos began. But when her grandfather brings home a cold-eyed stranger, she realizes that her "destiny" as one of the few females capable of still bearing children isn't something she's ready to face.
With the help of one of her aunts, she flees the only life she's ever known and sets off on a quest to find her long-lost mother (and hopefully a mate of her own choosing). But as she journeys, Ami discovers many new things about the world...and about herself.
Author Notes
Kristy Dallas Alley is a high school librarian in Memphis, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, four kids, three cats, and an indeterminate number of fish. She studied creative writing at Rhodes College in another lifetime and holds a master of science in instruction and curriculum leadership from the University of Memphis. In an ideal world, she would do nothing but sit on a beach and read every single day of her life, but in reality she's pretty happy reading on her front porch, neglecting the gardens she enthusiastically plants each spring, and cooking huge meals regardless of the number of people around to eat them. The Ballad of Ami Miles is her debut novel.
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--In this debut novel, a post-apocalyptic society is on the brink of extinction because women in their childbearing years are largely unable to reproduce. Isolated from her peers, Ami Miles grows up in a religious, patriarchal family complex, Heavenly Shepherd. When a stranger appears at the compound, it becomes painfully clear that she is expected to carry on the family line and respectfully follow her grandparents' wishes. With the help of other relatives, she runs away to find her mother who fled the compound shortly after Ami's birth. After hiking several days, she arrives at Lake Point and is exposed to a range of new experiences: discovering the limitations of her upbringing, meeting other teenagers and people of other races, finding her mother, and falling for a girl named Jessie. While the focus on Ami's internal thoughts limits dialogue and gives the story a slower pace, Alley takes on a number of complex topics, including individual freedom, women's rights, sexual identity, and racism. Ami, newly empowered by all she has learned, returns to Heavenly Shepherd to offer a different vision of life to her relatives. VERDICT The plot takes on many topics while leaving readers with unanswered questions about the fate of the complex and her grandparents. Yet this intriguing take on themes reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale could be an additional purchase for collections seeking more dystopian titles.--Monica Cabarcas, Albemarle High School, Charlottesville, VA
Booklist Review
Ami Miles has grown up the only child in Heavenly Shepherd, a trailer dealership that her great-great-grandfather turned into a strict religious compound at a time when the birthrate had plummeted due to a virus. One day, she returns from a foraging trip to find a strange man waiting there, planning to marry her. Her aunts and uncles help her run away to Lake Point Resort, where she might find her mother, who left when she was a baby. At the resort, Ami finds her mother, who now has a new family. The first-person narrative gives the reader vivid images of a world struggling to start over, and weighs the risks of individuality against the benefits of a secure community. Some readers may find Ami's discovery that she is a lesbian, which she reconciles in a week, and a number of other issues that the author packs in somewhat unconvincing, but the page-turning pace and suspenseful plot override most concerns. This is optimistic post-apocalyptic fiction.
