5 Quotes From ‘Betty’ That Left Me In Emotional Turmoil
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Before I start: PLEASE check the trigger warnings for this book before you pick it up for yourself. It’s a beautiful and emotional read, but darkly details some extremely heavy topics.
It’s only February, but I can confidently say that Tiffany McDaniel’s Betty is set to be one of, if not my favorite read of 2024.
The tale of a girl born in 1954 to a a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty follows the titular character throughout the personal and generational traumas that shape her formative years.
Equally a story of tragedy and hope, I don’t think any book has tugged at my heartstrings to the extent this one did (and continues to do so whenever I think about it). Here are 5 spoiler-free passages that I hope will convince you to choose Betty as your next read.
A girl comes of age against the knife. She must learn to bear its blade. To be cut. To bleed. To scar over and still, somehow, be beautiful and with good enough knees to take the sponge to the kitchen floor every Saturday.
These are the very first lines of the book, and the lines that told me right off the bat that I was in for an emotional ride.
Little did I know the emotional turmoil I was truly in for…
“Don’t need to sit in a pew to get the word of creation,” Dad would say. “All ya have to do is to walk the hills to know there’s somethin’ bigger. A tree preaches better than any man can.”
McDaniel tells so many unique stories throughout the novel via the character of Betty’s father. There is nothing I didn’t love about how he was written.
By bringing us into his world, nestled in the rolling hills of Appalachian Ohio, we get to see a perspective of the world that is totally new to most of us.
This quote is just one of many examples of that, and while I’m not a religious person, this passage gave me pause to reflect.
I tried to start 1965 believing I could shed the past. But I had learned that just because time has moved forward, it does not mean something so terrible ever gets easier to bear.
A powerful reminder that no matter how much work we’ve done and how far we’ve come, trauma can stay with us forever.
“Why’s a girl gotta change when she wears makeup?” I leaned back against the porch rail and dug my nails into the wood. “Why can’t I be the same wearin’ lipstick as I am when my lips are bare? Shouldn’t it matter more what comes out of my lips than what is worn on them?”
This dialogue becomes even more profound when you realize these lines are spoken by a young child, and think about just how early in life the expectations of femininity are instilled into us.
Despite being spoken over 70 years ago, these words are still likely to resonate with modern women everywhere.
Hungered, I wrote. I came to dislike my bed and the sleep that kept me from pouring myself upon the page. Anguish was my subject, but so, too, was love. My dialogue became an insanity that then evolved into a metamorphosis of soul. Risen against the odds, if only to oppose and defy the suffering, I plotted tales that commanded myself to survive.
A passage that truly resonated with me, and one I’m sure will do the same for my fellow writers. The weight of all our experiences, good and bad, can at least partially be taken from our shoulders when we get it down on the page.
These snippets only go a small part of the way to describing how this book repeatedly shattered my heart and put it back together again.
Through the story of Betty and her family, McDaniel shows us how the scars of a family can be passed on between generations, but also how each generation can use those scars to build resilience and move forward in a cruel world.
Don’t forget to check the trigger warnings before diving in, if needed. If you have the emotional space to handle it, I highly urge you to choose Betty as your next read and open yourself up to the roller coaster ride between grief and joy.