Letting Go of Bobby James, or How I Found Myself of Steam

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Overview

A heartwarming journey to self-discovery

When sixteen-year-old Sally Jo Walker, known as Jody, is abandoned at a gas station by her husband after he hits her, she summons up all the courage she can to move forward. With just twenty dollars to her name, she begins a new life in Jackson Beach, Florida, washing dishes at Thelma's Open 24-Hour Café and sneaking into the cineplex at night to sleep. Eventually she saves up enough money to rent a cheap motel room. There she gets to know Effaline, and comes to see that here's a girl who is more alone and lost than she is. Jody is going to save her. And in trying to do so, Jody ...

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More About This Book

Overview

A heartwarming journey to self-discovery

When sixteen-year-old Sally Jo Walker, known as Jody, is abandoned at a gas station by her husband after he hits her, she summons up all the courage she can to move forward. With just twenty dollars to her name, she begins a new life in Jackson Beach, Florida, washing dishes at Thelma's Open 24-Hour Café and sneaking into the cineplex at night to sleep. Eventually she saves up enough money to rent a cheap motel room. There she gets to know Effaline, and comes to see that here's a girl who is more alone and lost than she is. Jody is going to save her. And in trying to do so, Jody might just save herself.

At turns heart-wrenching and funny, Valerie Hobbs's latest novel introduces readers to an unforgettable and surprising young woman who manages to break free of an abusive relationship and finds true strength and her "self of steam."

After being left by her husband at a gas station in Florida, sixteen-year-old Sally Jo Walker, also known as Jody, makes some difficult decisions and a better life for herself.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Hobbs (Tender; Sonny's War) creates yet another memorable heroine in Sally Jo (Jody) Walker, a recently wed 16-year-old, who is deserted by her husband while on a road trip through Florida. Miles away from her home in Purley, Tex., with just a $20 bill in her pocket and the clothes on her back, Jody sets out to start a new life in Jackson Beach. Jody's story begins as a series of letters she writes to the owner of a string of Florida convenience stores. Even through hard times, nothing-not even Hurricane Emma-can dampen the heroine's spirits enough to go running back to her abusive husband, who can be "lower than a swamp in a drought." Jody's first-person narrative, characterized by colorful colloquialisms and a no-nonsense attitude ("first in all my family to graduate eighth grade"), remains energetic as she introduces an entourage of winsome personalities, who eventually help her find a niche: Marilyn, the kindly waitress who works at the 24-hour diner where Jody washes dishes, Effaline, a pregnant runaway, whose survival instincts are not as sharply tuned as Jody's, and Dooley, the floor mopper at the cineplex-"a big little boy" who winds up a hero when he helps Jody deliver Effaline's baby. Readers will admire Jody's spunk and determination as she defeats one obstacle after another, grows increasingly independent and gains "self of steam" along the way. Ages 12-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
This is a great read! If you are not from Texas, the accent might hold you back from getting into the book. However, it doesn't take you very long before you settle in to the accent. The opening pages are a letter written by Jody, the main character in the book. Her full name is Sally Jo Walker, a 16-year-old newlywed who has been slapped one too many times by her husband, Bobby James Walker. The last name Walker is great symbolism for the couple. He impatiently leaves her while she is in a gas station/convenience store bathroom, but she doesn't wait around for him and takes the next bus wherever it is going. The last stop is Jackson Beach, Florida, where Jody finds her self of steam. She sleeps in the movie house at night and works at Thelma's Cafe by day. Eventually she makes friends with the mentally challenged character Dooley and Effaline, a 15-year-old pregnant runaway. This is a coming of age sort of book that captivated me. 2004, Frances Foster Books, 144 pp., Ages young adult.
—Sherri Stradling
More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews
Children's Literature
When 16-year-old Jody's volatile young husband, Bobby James, "pops her" one across the face with the back of his hand, Jody knows that she can't stay with him any longer—even if she's all alone in coastal Florida, a thousand miles from her Texas home, with only twenty dollars to her name. Instead, Jody is going to have to build a new life for herself, as recounted in her candid first-person narrative, confided as a long, chatty letter to food-market-magnate Harris Teeter, ostensibly to explain to him why he needs to change his coleslaw recipe. While the novel presents itself as tracing Jody's journey toward finding her "self of steam," Jody has steam aplenty bubbling over from page one. When she tells us, early on in the story, that "there were just three choices to make. Left, right, or straight ahead," the reader knows that Jody doesn't even consider a fourth choice: turning back. As Jody finds herself a job (washing dishes at Thelma's Open 24-Hour Cafe), a place to sleep (in the empty Cinemax theater), and new friends (pregnant teen Effaline and mentally "slow" Dooley), she also forms for herself a new, unlikely but wonderfully likeable, family. Jody's voice is fresh and funny, her predicament gripping and poignant, and her heartwarming triumph cause for abundant celebration. 2004, Frances Foster/Farrar Straus Giroux, Ages 12 up.
—Claudia Mills
School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-Sally Jo Walker, known as Jody, is a 16-year-old runaway bride of 13 weeks who finds herself on her own with $20 in her pocket and nowhere to go. If Bobby James hadn't hit her, she wouldn't be holed up in a gas-station bathroom. She uses the time to write a letter on paper towels to the corporate head of the Harris Teeter food-store chain with a suggestion on how to improve his inferior coleslaw. This literary device is a bit confusing, as Hobbs drops it early on and doesn't pick it up again until this improbable coming-of-age tale ends. The first-person exposition is frank and endearing, and Jody is apparently wiser than many people twice her age as she struggles to survive in a strange town. She is resourceful and likable and the novel is peopled with the downtrodden, both with hearts of gold and flint. The teen's determination makes the adults around her seem foolish and lost. Despite the title, Bobby James plays a minor role, and when he reappears on the scene readers may be hard-pressed to believe Jody is so susceptible to his questionable charm-yet it is then that she reacts as the average 16-year-old might. This story suffers from too many implausible events, but this feisty character has considerable appeal.-Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Texan Jody, 16, has only been married to Bobby James for 13 weeks when he punches her out and leaves her at a gas station in Florida in 1991. Readers learn this when Jody begins a missive to a supermarket owner, to set him straight on the subject of coleslaw. Jody has gumption, though, and enough smarts to know a few things. She gets a job as dishwasher at Thelma's cafe and sleeps in the local movie theatre until she can get a place. She makes the acquaintance of Dooley, a mentally disabled boy, and, later, the pregnant and sullen Effaline. It's Effaline who brings out the urge to make things right in Jody. She finds the local library, writes her mama, and moves into the same seedy apartment complex where Effaline lives. It's Jody and Dooley who deliver Effaline's baby (aptly named Cine) in that movie theatre during a hurricane, and it's Cine's birth they are celebrating when Bobby James turns up just like a bad penny. This is all presented in Jody's unvarnished and very funny voice. A fast read where problems can actually be solved by facing them head-on, thinking stuff through, and working hard. (Fiction. YA)

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780374343842
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Publication date: 8/28/2004
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Pages: 144
  • Age range: 14 - 18 Years
  • Lexile: 780L (what's this?)
  • Product dimensions: 5.66 (w) x 8.64 (h) x 0.71 (d)

Meet the Author

Valerie Hobbs is the author of many acclaimed books for young adults, including Sonny's War and Tender. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Read an Excerpt

Letting Go of Bobby James

Or How I Found My Self of Steam
By Hobbs, Valerie

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Copyright © 2004 Hobbs, Valerie
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0374343845
From Letting Go of Bobby James: Or How I Found My Self of Steam

We are at a picnic table just an overhand pitch from the ocean, and the sun is shining something fierce. I'm about to give Bobby James a peck on the cheek because I'm feeling so good, when out of the blue he says something funny. As in funny peculiar. Just why did I want to get hitched up with him anyway? he asks. And I can see he doesn't really want the answer, and he's starting to heat up the way he does. What you need to do then is play him out on a long line and wait till he can be reeled back in. But this time he winds up tighter and tighter, and then he just pops me.

Just like that, with the back of his hand.

And some voice inside tells me not to cry out, some voice that's been there all the while I guess, just waiting for the right time. And the bright blue ocean and that pretty white sand and the kids streaking by on their skateboards and the family right next to us in the silver RV all tip away and for a minute go black.

Popped me winded.


Continues...
Excerpted from Letting Go of Bobby James byHobbs, Valerie Copyright © 2004 by Hobbs, Valerie. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 28, 2005

    Where the Heart is Meets Teens

    This is such a wonderful book. It is easy to read and very interesting. It is similar to Where the Heart is but revolves around 3 teens. Jody, who decides to move on from her husband when he hits her. Finding herself homeless she eventually finds a job and befriends another teen. Effaline, a pregnant girl who becomes Jody's best friend. They also make friends with Dooley a mentally handicapped teen. Jody learns the best life lessons when she is left on her own.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 20, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

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