Reviews

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

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atreegrowsinbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

What a strange dystopian thriller by Erdrich. Very different than the other books I’ve read by her.

There were so many twists that I didn’t see coming and I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t able to guess everything that was happening. The character work and storytelling is so successful, and it’s clear that Erdrich can truly write anything.

While I really enjoyed the writing, the content of this story was unsettling. Especially when women’s rights have been further taken away. In some aspects, the story isn’t that far off from what could happen.

I haven’t read A Handmaid’s Tale, but I’ve seen the show and this book is definitely similar to that. This is an indigenous version that I’d recommend to anyone looking for a dystopian thriller with links to the real world as we know it.

Fun fact, I picked this book up because the first page starts on my birthday

Content Warnings

lottie1803's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

abby_bookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

“Future Home of the Living God” by Louise Erdrich 3.25/5

This book kept me up until 2am last night reading it. “Future Home of the Living God” is one of those books that I couldn’t put down, but also didn’t love all that much (which is contradictory, I know!). The plot was so gripping, and I really enjoyed the choice to frame the novel as a series of letters. I also thought the reflection on motherhood was really touching and meaningful, and I loved the different members of the protagonist’s family.

However, I felt very detached from the world around me. To be fair, the protagonist herself is detached from this world, which in the span of a few months becomes dystopian and changed. But I didn’t have a good grasp of what was *happening* in this world. Supposedly humans are evolving “backwards” into Neanderthals (?), and because of that the government has taken over and started kidnapping pregnant women in a “Handmaid’s Tale” style. But readers don’t get to see or hear much of that at all, because the protagonist is as in the dark as we are. While I think this could have worked for some, it didn’t work for me. I think I would have preferred there to be multiple POVs in this novel, so that I could get external information from other characters. It might have been interesting to have the POV of the three mothers in this novel (Cedar [the protagonist], Sera [her adopted mother], and Sweetie [her birth mother]).