Name All The Animals (continued once more)

Having finished Name All The Animals, by Alison Smith, I've found that a lot of the characters in the book were likable. They all seemed to try to do the best thing for the people around them. Even though some of the family members seemed slightly harsh, it's hard to dislike people when you know they've gone through something as difficult as losing a son/brother. My favorite characters were Sister Aggie, Roy and Mary Elizabeth. Roy and Sister Aggie both seemed like kind, goodhearted, funny people. They both had a sense of humor and were much more understanding than Alison's parents or the other nuns. They aren't very similar, but I liked their characters for similar reasons. -Mary Elizabeth was Alison's neighbor and the sister she never had. After Roy died, she saved the newspaper article when Alison asked her to. Although she let Alison mope around in the basement for a little while, she would eventually force her to come outside, climb trees and various sorts of things to get the grief off her mind. I like that she (even though she was going through her own "teenage drama,") she continued to be there for Alison and she treated her the same as she had before Roy's death.

A character who I really don't like is Alison's mother. She is rude. I think that even though she tried her hardest to cope with her grief as well as her family's, she couldn't do it all on her own and it seemed like she refused to ask for help. I think her constant nagging at Alison to feel better and go through the stages of grief just made things harder for her.