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stephaniesteen73's review against another edition
2.0
I guess I just don't get Charles Frazier's books. I felt the same way about this one as I did about Cold Mountain: long and depressing with a bleak ending.
bxnnny's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
i don't really know how i feel about this book, to be honest. i found some of the prose to be moving, but i also found a lot of the writing to be slow and repetitive. i can't tell if i liked will as a character or not. he sometimes can be an unreliable narrator with a big ego and a white saviour complex that i couldn't help but roll my eyes to. at the same time, i found it touching the lengths he was willing to go to for his found family and a people who deserved better and more. by the end, i felt frustrated that he became so careless that it almost was all for nothing. i also at times didn't understand the ongoing back and forth with claire. the ending was also just... strange lmao. the middle of the book got really interesting and i started to feel more connected to the story and the character but then it just tapered off and i didn't feel as connected or invested and just wanted to finish it. at the same time, i found some of the introspection about love and grief and change and loss and the passage of time compelling. i just don't know. i want to like this book, but it just kind of fell short for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Animal death and Death
smusie's review against another edition
3.0
Just for the record, I loved Cold Mountain. I mean, I really loved it. I loved the book more than the movie, and I saw the movie three times. In the theater. Honest. Plus a couple more times on DVD. I had to go to rehab to stop watching that movie. If anyone thinks that's weird, I just have two words for you: Jude Law. So anyway, of course I had to eventually read this book. I liked it a lot--similar setting, more native Americans, similar dry tone, now veering more toward droll. But the love story lacked direction and sense (although not hot sex). In general the plot was meandering--makes sense for a memoir kind of story, but made for little suspense or arc, unlike the heartstopping CM. Maybe I'll read that again. P.S. Nicole Kidman was way too pretty for that role.
holacandita's review against another edition
I can't decide if this deserves 3 or 4 stars. Frazier does a wonderful job of painting a vivid image for his reader, or listener in my case, sometimes to the point of overdoing it. And while nothing much really happens in the story, the prose was enough to keep me mostly interested. I went with 3 stars because had I not been listening to the audiobook, I may or may not have finished this one.
book_concierge's review against another edition
5.0
Audiobook performed by Will Patton
5*****
Frazier’s sophomore effort returns to the rural Carolina landscape, covering nearly a century from the 1820s to the very beginning of the 20th century. The tale is told by Will Cooper, who as a twelve-year-old orphan was sent into the wilderness as a “bound boy” – beholden to a serve as the lone shopkeeper of a remote Indian Trading Post in exchange for a small stipend. He was sent from his uncle’s home with a horse, a key, an old map, and his father’s knife. He is befriended by Bear, a Cherokee chief, and develops a strong relationship with the father figure.
What a marvelous story, and beautifully told. Will’s life is full of adventure and opportunities, as well as peril and mistakes. At the outset of his journey he begins the habit of keeping journals and it is these documents that help record his extraordinary ordinary life. At a tender age, Will falls head-over-heels in love with the enigmatic Claire, who is the powerful Featherstone’s girl. He develops skills as a trader, negotiator and entrepreneur. He reads voraciously and becomes a lawyer. He meets, and either befriends or makes enemies of, a variety of famous individuals, including Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett. He finagles and trades and manages to kluge together quite a large parcel of land. He makes and loses and remakes several fortunes. He seeks the counsel of Bear and also of Granny Squirrel, a medicine woman who is said to be over 200 years old, and whose spells cannot be broken.
Frazier paints this time and place so vividly, I felt transported to that time. I could smell the pines, hear bacon fat sizzling in a pan, feel the chill of a winter morning or the warmth of a welcome fire, taste the delicious stews and French wines. Here are a couple of memorable passages:
I slept on the open ground and watched the enormous sky off and on between brief bouts of sleep. It was a dark night, without any moon at all and utterly cloudless. The air was dry and the stars were sharp points in the dark and there seemed to be a great many more of them than I ever remembered seeing before. And then it came to my attention that it was a night of meteor showers. Spouts and shoots of light, both thin and broad, arced overhead.
The cool damp air smelled of wet growing leaves and rotted dead leaves. A redtail hawk sat in a Fraser fir. It stared my way and shook water out of its feathers. It spread its wings and its tail, and it bowed toward me – or lunged, perhaps. I thought there was recognition in the look it gave me, and I put an arm straight into the air as a salute, for I guessed the hawk to be a representative of the mountains themselves, an ambassador charged with greeting me upon my return.
She had beautiful soft hair the color of a dove’s breast and green eyes and creamy long legs that turned under into unfortunately long narrow feet, but she had a behind with curves to break your heart. At least, they broke mine.
Will Cooper’s America is long gone but vividly brought to mind by Frazier’s skill. On finishing, I find that I want to start over again at the beginning, savoring every word.
Will Patton is fast becoming one of my favorite audiobook narrators. He does a marvelous job with Frazier’s text, bringing the many characters to life.
5*****
Frazier’s sophomore effort returns to the rural Carolina landscape, covering nearly a century from the 1820s to the very beginning of the 20th century. The tale is told by Will Cooper, who as a twelve-year-old orphan was sent into the wilderness as a “bound boy” – beholden to a serve as the lone shopkeeper of a remote Indian Trading Post in exchange for a small stipend. He was sent from his uncle’s home with a horse, a key, an old map, and his father’s knife. He is befriended by Bear, a Cherokee chief, and develops a strong relationship with the father figure.
What a marvelous story, and beautifully told. Will’s life is full of adventure and opportunities, as well as peril and mistakes. At the outset of his journey he begins the habit of keeping journals and it is these documents that help record his extraordinary ordinary life. At a tender age, Will falls head-over-heels in love with the enigmatic Claire, who is the powerful Featherstone’s girl. He develops skills as a trader, negotiator and entrepreneur. He reads voraciously and becomes a lawyer. He meets, and either befriends or makes enemies of, a variety of famous individuals, including Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett. He finagles and trades and manages to kluge together quite a large parcel of land. He makes and loses and remakes several fortunes. He seeks the counsel of Bear and also of Granny Squirrel, a medicine woman who is said to be over 200 years old, and whose spells cannot be broken.
Frazier paints this time and place so vividly, I felt transported to that time. I could smell the pines, hear bacon fat sizzling in a pan, feel the chill of a winter morning or the warmth of a welcome fire, taste the delicious stews and French wines. Here are a couple of memorable passages:
I slept on the open ground and watched the enormous sky off and on between brief bouts of sleep. It was a dark night, without any moon at all and utterly cloudless. The air was dry and the stars were sharp points in the dark and there seemed to be a great many more of them than I ever remembered seeing before. And then it came to my attention that it was a night of meteor showers. Spouts and shoots of light, both thin and broad, arced overhead.
The cool damp air smelled of wet growing leaves and rotted dead leaves. A redtail hawk sat in a Fraser fir. It stared my way and shook water out of its feathers. It spread its wings and its tail, and it bowed toward me – or lunged, perhaps. I thought there was recognition in the look it gave me, and I put an arm straight into the air as a salute, for I guessed the hawk to be a representative of the mountains themselves, an ambassador charged with greeting me upon my return.
She had beautiful soft hair the color of a dove’s breast and green eyes and creamy long legs that turned under into unfortunately long narrow feet, but she had a behind with curves to break your heart. At least, they broke mine.
Will Cooper’s America is long gone but vividly brought to mind by Frazier’s skill. On finishing, I find that I want to start over again at the beginning, savoring every word.
Will Patton is fast becoming one of my favorite audiobook narrators. He does a marvelous job with Frazier’s text, bringing the many characters to life.
nderiley's review against another edition
3.0
This book was entertaining but i wouldn't insist that my friends read it like some of my other favorites. I thought the main character was for the most part well written and easy to relate to but something about the way the writer aged the character through the story didn't translate well for me so I felt like I was reading about a young man and then, wham, super old guy.
I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading Thirteen Moons, but I'd suggest putting it near the bottom of your must read list
I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading Thirteen Moons, but I'd suggest putting it near the bottom of your must read list
randomshai's review against another edition
5.0
“Almost nothing in life is epic or tragic at the moment of its enactment. History in the making, at least on the personal level, is almost exclusively pathetic. People suffer and die in ignorance and delusion.”
What can I say; I’m a sucker for rural historical fiction. This was my first sojourn into Frazier’s written world, and I was hooked from the beginning. Although perhaps my favorite genre, many authors lose me in their attempt at recreating the worlds of our past. However, the voice of Will Cooper (as penned by Frazier) paints the wild scenery, rough companions, and unwaveringly raw wit of his life so clearly one almost forgets it is a fictitious tale. Based on this book, I’ll be (shamelessly) bumping “Cold Mountain” to the top of my February TBR. This is a written world to which I’d readily return, and considering I fell so hard for this novel I have no doubt his higher rated novel will fulfill this wish.
“We all reach a point where we would like to draw a line across time and declare everything on the far side null. Shed our past life like a pair of wet and muddy trousers, just roll their heavy clinging fabric down our legs and step away. We also reach a point where we would give the rest of our withering days for the month of July in our seventeenth year. But no thread of Ariadne exists to lead us back there.”
Quote 1: theme
Quote 2: favorite
What can I say; I’m a sucker for rural historical fiction. This was my first sojourn into Frazier’s written world, and I was hooked from the beginning. Although perhaps my favorite genre, many authors lose me in their attempt at recreating the worlds of our past. However, the voice of Will Cooper (as penned by Frazier) paints the wild scenery, rough companions, and unwaveringly raw wit of his life so clearly one almost forgets it is a fictitious tale. Based on this book, I’ll be (shamelessly) bumping “Cold Mountain” to the top of my February TBR. This is a written world to which I’d readily return, and considering I fell so hard for this novel I have no doubt his higher rated novel will fulfill this wish.
“We all reach a point where we would like to draw a line across time and declare everything on the far side null. Shed our past life like a pair of wet and muddy trousers, just roll their heavy clinging fabric down our legs and step away. We also reach a point where we would give the rest of our withering days for the month of July in our seventeenth year. But no thread of Ariadne exists to lead us back there.”
Quote 1: theme
Quote 2: favorite
jgintrovertedreader's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't like Thirteen Moons as well as Cold Mountain. This one had a little too much detail and I got bogged down. Also, I never really got the point of the book. It didn't really feel like it went anywhere, even after I had finished it. Although I did like the last scene of the book when he gets to shoot tourists everyday. Probably a sentiment we can all relate to, no matter where we live!