Reviews for Captain Scraggs

The average rating for Captain Scraggs based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-09-11 00:00:00 Kastoras Kastorakis This is my second Joan Bauer. I haven't read a lot of her books, but I got an impression she is an author who can write feel-good, impressive coming-of-age stories. The protagonist, Jenna Boller is the best employee at Gladstone's Shoe Store. Merely a teenager, but she has an excellent insight into shoes and a flair for finding out what her customers need and can make them happy by finding a 'perfect match' for them. But just as other teenagers probably do, she has a lot of issues and is insecure. The traumatic experience with her alcoholic father and their parents' divorce, in addition to her Grandma's onset Alzheimer's -which turned out to be the hardest hit for her - she was forced to grow up yet has always afraid to confront her issues, especially her father. She knows she can't go on living her life the way she has, but she has let him walk all over her and started to want to escape the harsh reality by getting her own car and leaving town. A six-week road trip to Texas with Mrs. Gladstone - the 73-year-old president of Gladstone's Shoe Store Jenna works for - comes at the perfect timing. Mrs. Gladstone confides in her with the issues the company is facing and asks (demands, more like) Jenna to drive her to Texas in a Cadillac to attend the Shareholder's meeting which will decide the future of the company. Despite her mother's reluctance, Jenna decides to tag along as a chauffeur and set out on a journey to Texas with temperamental, sprightly Mrs. Gladstone to save the company. The writing is solid and flows quite nicely. There's nothing off and the pacing is on-point. I really enjoyed the banter and exchanges between Jenna and Mrs. Gladstone, and the descriptions of the road-trip are simply delightful to read through. I have never gone on a road trip, so this book made me feel as though I was tagging along after them and seeing what they see and experiencing what they go through in the book. It was quite a ride. I especially like how Joan Bauer illustrates the flair that Jenna possesses as a shoe seller. She is incredibly smart and competent, literally capable of catering to her customers' needs and knows ins and outs of shoe-selling. She can tell good displays from bad displays and what reel customers into their store. The scene where Jenna snoops around (under the command of Mrs. Gladstone) their rival company, Shoe Warehouse, is oh, so exhilarating. Joan Bauer was brilliant at creating a hilarious scene that underscores Jenna's competency by describing what crappy a job her opponent sales person does. And at the same time, by underscoring how Gladstone's opponents are merely seeking for profits and neglecting what their customers truly need (like shoving toe-pinching shoes saying that "they just need break-in"), this book gives us a good life lesson on what 'customer service' really means and how we tend to let it take a backseat to bottom-line. Character growth is also a highlight of this book; Like I mentioned earlier, Jenna has bottled up her emotions and concerns over her drunken father and is also struggling with some other issues such as self-image, insecurity, and vulnerability. On the other hand, the indomitable, sprightly Mrs. Gladstone herself is dealing with her own insecurities and grief; her son is literally bound and determined to kick her out of the company, he is moving forward with Goldstone's merger with Shoe Warehouse which sells second-class shoes for what they boast as 'economical, reasonable prices. Through this journey to Texas, they go through some setbacks and resort to doing a lot of self-reflection, and eventually, they work up the courage to confront and defeat their own fears head-on. I loved reading how two people literally sitting on the other sides of the spectrum interact and influence each other and develop themselves. There are nothing particularly over-dramatic scenes, all those scenes are told in a very calm, quiet voice thus it didn't strike me as much, but the message is really clear and I kind of like this calm, down-to-earth undertone running through the book. Not excessively dramatic, yet still a compelling, gripping read. I really enjoyed this book. Although I got a feeling that Joan Bauer tends to use 'death' as a means of character growth and as a way for their characters to look into their own minds and emotions, once again, the messages this book offers were highlighted and clearly heard through the death of the endearing key character, I think I can live with that. Not having any loose ends is also noteworthy; Joan Bauer tied everything so beautifully at the end of the book. It did feel a bit too neat and clean, but she didn't leave any sub plots loose, she wrapped everything up nicely including Jenna's defiance and confrontation with her father. She finally works up her courage to stand against her drunken father and says NO. "Problems are not something that makes you weak and flawed; problems are something that makes you stronger, and different. Something that shows you how to defy the darkness." This is a story of growth and recognition of strength that's been hidden beneath the surface. The story of an unforgettable summer that made her grow and mature through the interactions with people from all walk of life. This book is really clean and doesn't even contain any romance element which makes this book quite refreshing to read, and I recommend picking this up if you are looking for a comfort-food type of book. It's a beautifully written, heart-warming read. This book makes me want to pick up more books from Joan Bauer.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-19 00:00:00 Thomas Haney This is the kind of book about women that the world needs, which is to say it is in no way chick-lit. The protagonist is an ugly-duckling teenager who loves to sell shoes and chaffeurs her 70-something boss around the midwestern and southern US. The majority of the book is spent with this teenage girl, who is anything but frivolous, and a hard-as-nails septuagenarian. There are a couple kind-hearted shoes salesmen and a drunken father, but these are just bit parts. At this book's heart is a story about business and ageism--romance is but briefly mentioned and brushed aside. These women are business-minded and empathetic in a way rarely seen in female characters. Both Jenna and Mrs. Gladstone show that women can be brutal businesswomen without being stone-cold bitches. Proof that not all books about females are about female concerns. Books about women can be, in fact, books about the world just the same way books about men are. If only more people would write books about women that weren't romances that perpetuate stereotypes. Updated to add: Passes the Bechdel Test, handily: