Day: May 4, 2021

I learned a lot of things from this book. including delightful new words and phrases.

I learned that small towns are the same whether they are in Newfoundland or the US or UK, and also that teenagers can be obnoxious regardless of country of residence.

That is what made this book so enjoyable to me. Even though I have never traveled to Newfoundland, I found the attitudes of the townspeople to be similar to a small upstate NY town we used to live in. As a former teacher, I felt the teenage characters were familiar as well.

Rachel was therefore relatable on a couple of different levels. I remember my first day of teaching high school like it was yesterday. That was one of my favorite scenes in the book.

She also handled everything the best she could. She wasn’t perfect and she made mistakes, but she came across as someone genuine who just wanted to fit in and do a good job.

I especially liked how the author wrote phonetically or in the vernacular. I know that’s often a bone of contention when dealing with accents in a book.

But I prefer it because I read those parts out loud (yes, it probably seemed as if I was talking to myself) and it definitely gave me a better feel for the cadence and lilt of the townies’ language. I was also struck by how much it had in common with Irish inflections and contractions.

I really enjoyed all of the characters – quirky doesn’t begin to describe some of them.

But back to the teaching part, I thought the way Rachel figured out how to reach the students was accurately portrayed. Sometimes it’s all about just catching their attention in the smallest way – then you can expand on it to bring them further around.  

I guess if there was a phrase to sum up this book it would be “don’t judge a book by its cover.” The townies got to know Rachel instead of judging her as a mainlander and she got to know the students in spite of being warned about them by others.

This was a charming book and I would recommend it for a light, easy, relaxing read.

DAMHNAIT MONAGHAN was once a mainlander who taught in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. A former teacher and lawyer, Monaghan has almost sixty publication credits, including flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and short stories. Her short prose has won or placed in various writing competitions and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. New Girl in Little Cove placed in the top six from more than 350 entries in the 2019 International Caledonia Novel Award.