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Reviewed by Dr. Karen Hutchins Pirnot for Readers' Favorite
"The Stovepipe" by Bonnie Virag is well worth the read. Ms. Virag was a Canadian child with seventeen brothers and sisters who was put into the foster care system at the age of four. For most of the years under the care of the Children's Aid Society, Bonnie was kept together with her twin sister Betty and this pairing seemed to provide a somewhat supportive motivation for the children to survive what would buckle most children undergoing those circumstances. When Bonnie and Betty were reunited with their older twin siblings, they were able to live out nearly eight years of trials and tribulations in an abusive foster care placement.
The tenacity of the author is evident throughout the memoir. All of the children appeared motivated to make lemonade from the lemons they were handed but some suffered more than others. In the final count, Bonnie acknowledges that adversity either makes you bitter or better and she has obviously rejected adopting a bitter stance toward her years of deprivation and hardship. It is a very difficult task to attempt to write about personal pain in an objective and yet meaningful way. Bonnie Virag has done just that. She has set the bar high for those wanting to remain wallowed in regret and bitterness for what they did not have. The saying by an anonymous writer that "I asked for all things that I might enjoy life: I was given life that I might enjoy all things," is quite apt here as Ms. Virag is the epitome of what this saying really means in the lifetime of a single individual.
