A Thousand Acres

This is a book report about the book A Thousand Acres. Jane Smiley wrote this book, the grade level is 7.7 and it is worth twenty-seven points. This book is about three sisters who are each trying to be given a third of the farm corporation set up by their father. The aging father is trying to set up the corporation so that the daughters won't have to pay inheritance taxes. The youngest daughter, Caroline, who happens to be a lawyer does not like this idea. Rose and Ginny think that it is a good idea, they live on the farm. Due to this disagreement the family gets into a big fight. Some not too good memories come out of the fight. The girlsremember the fact that their father molested Ginny and Rose.

Rose and Ginny get sued for the farm by their father and Caroline, in the end Ginny and Rose win the battle. After the whole court affair was over Ginny moved away to try to forget about it all, then Rose's breast cancer comes back and she moves back to help Rose and her daughters. Then when they thought that all tragedy was over, their father died of a heart attack. Rose fought her cancer for a while, but in the end she lost her battle.

The major conflict in this book was when Rose and Ginny remember about their father molesting them. Their father thought that he took the secret that he molested them to the grave, but he didn't. It took a while for Ginny to remember that she was molested. After Rose kept on telling her that they were molested Ginny had some flashbacks and she remembered what happened. Rose and Ginny never told anyone about their father. He was a respected man in the community and Rose and Ginny were mad that their father got away with it.

The theme of this story is that when something bad happens you need to talk about it. It can trigger more and more problems if you don't get it off your chest. When you keep the secret to yourself it builds up and eats away at you. Then it makes you angrier about the problem. By not telling anyone it doesn't help the problem any.

In my opinion I didn't really care for this book. The problems could have been taken care of if the two girls were stronger-willed. They just let themselves be pushed over and the problem was never resolved, then their father died and they never talked about it with him. I also don't like the fact that the sisters were arguing over the land like it was a toy. It was an easy book to understand,