REVIEW: Girls Like Us

A novel by Gail Giles

Biddy and Quincy, two young women with mental disabilities, have graduated from high school and been placed together as roommates in the home of Miss Lizzy, an older woman in their community who is in need of assistance. They are as different as can be — Biddy, sweet and pliable; and Quincy, hostile and aggressively independent — except for their mutual experiences of abuse, neglect and insults. They have been told their whole lives that they are worthless and stupid, but in Miss Lizzy’s house, they find for the first time understanding, friendship, and family. Yet even this new refuge cannot protect them completely from the outside world, and they must face, and triumph over, the cruelty they find there.

In short, alternating chapters, Biddy and Quincy reveal their pasts and tell their stories with their own unique, accented voices. Watching the friendship between these two special women develop and evolve over the course of the novel is as heart-warming as witnessing the fear and abuse that tears them down is heart-breaking. Gail Giles has done a brave and important thing in Girls Like Us, giving voice to the Special Education students she taught throughout her career and reminding us how very similar we all are on the inside.

— Susan Davidson, Main Library, Charleston, S.C.

Find this and similar titles from Charleston County Public Library. This item available as a book. To learn more or place a hold, visit www.ccpl.org or call 843-805-6930.