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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
BX Link: https://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/17029316/
Genre: Historical Fiction/Mystery
Where: Canada
When: 1960s - 1980s
Thoughts/Reflections: I listened to this one as an audiobook, read by the author. At first I felt a little guilty, like that was cheating. And I may well go back and read the paper copy again, but I think for a first read, the audio format was perfect. MacDonald has an incredible gift with words, and I feel like I got even more out of the way she put them together to tell this story because I was hearing it in HER voice, not the voice inside my head. The story? It’s a bit of historical fiction, a bit of mystery, but oh so very much more than that. It’s easily one of my top five books this year, and I’ve read/listened to some really good ones.
My favorite words:
“What is worse? Being dead? Or not being born? How come we're afraid to die, but we're not afraid of before we were born?”
"Lies are like clutter on the radar screen: they obscure your target."
“The first lie. But how is it different from the others he has told her in the past few days? "It's just sabre-rattling. Nothing to worry about." They are not really lies. They are another way of saying, "I'll look after you." Another way of saying, ‘I love you.’”
“Part of being a wife is knowing when to say nothing.”
“Denizens of the great in-between of belonging and not belonging; dwellers in the cracks of sidewalks; stateless citizens of the world; strangers among us, familiar to all. Comedians. These are Madeleine's people.”
“WE ALL NEED to look under the rock from time to time. We are all afraid of the dark, and drawn to it too, because we know that we left something there, something just behind us. We can feel it now and then, but fear to turn lest we catch sight of what we long to see.”
“We are scared of our own shadow. A good comedian scares the shadow.”
“Madeleine has a long list of why it's easy for her, she keeps no account of how it's hard.”
“The news allows you to forget. Tirelessly reordering the world. which crumbles daily. Reporters are the king's horses and men who put Humpty together again, every day, several times a day. News imparts the reassuring illusion of time passing, of change. No need to tap into the undercurrent, which is slower and so much stronger and costs us grief and knowledge. News is a time substitute, like coffee whitener.”
“Here is love's guilty secret: it doesn't hurt. It has been right in front of her.”
“Fresh sorrows reactivate old ones. We go to the same well to grieve, and it's fuller every time.”
Genre: Historical Fiction/Mystery
Where: Canada
When: 1960s - 1980s
Thoughts/Reflections: I listened to this one as an audiobook, read by the author. At first I felt a little guilty, like that was cheating. And I may well go back and read the paper copy again, but I think for a first read, the audio format was perfect. MacDonald has an incredible gift with words, and I feel like I got even more out of the way she put them together to tell this story because I was hearing it in HER voice, not the voice inside my head. The story? It’s a bit of historical fiction, a bit of mystery, but oh so very much more than that. It’s easily one of my top five books this year, and I’ve read/listened to some really good ones.
My favorite words:
“What is worse? Being dead? Or not being born? How come we're afraid to die, but we're not afraid of before we were born?”
"Lies are like clutter on the radar screen: they obscure your target."
“The first lie. But how is it different from the others he has told her in the past few days? "It's just sabre-rattling. Nothing to worry about." They are not really lies. They are another way of saying, "I'll look after you." Another way of saying, ‘I love you.’”
“Part of being a wife is knowing when to say nothing.”
“Denizens of the great in-between of belonging and not belonging; dwellers in the cracks of sidewalks; stateless citizens of the world; strangers among us, familiar to all. Comedians. These are Madeleine's people.”
“WE ALL NEED to look under the rock from time to time. We are all afraid of the dark, and drawn to it too, because we know that we left something there, something just behind us. We can feel it now and then, but fear to turn lest we catch sight of what we long to see.”
“We are scared of our own shadow. A good comedian scares the shadow.”
“Madeleine has a long list of why it's easy for her, she keeps no account of how it's hard.”
“The news allows you to forget. Tirelessly reordering the world. which crumbles daily. Reporters are the king's horses and men who put Humpty together again, every day, several times a day. News imparts the reassuring illusion of time passing, of change. No need to tap into the undercurrent, which is slower and so much stronger and costs us grief and knowledge. News is a time substitute, like coffee whitener.”
“Here is love's guilty secret: it doesn't hurt. It has been right in front of her.”
“Fresh sorrows reactivate old ones. We go to the same well to grieve, and it's fuller every time.”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, War
Minor: Religious bigotry
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
http://ginasblogging.blogspot.com/2005/05/way-crow-flies-by-ann-marie-macdonald.html
An impressive follow-up to the moving, epic Fall On Your Knees. Stays with you for some time and holds some suspenseful mystery elements which surprised me a bit... didn't see several things coming in this thick volume. A good summer book to nibble your way through and relish the ending.
It’s been a long time where I read a book that super challenged me, not to mention one that was over 800 pages long.
There were elements to the book that went over my head when it came to the details around the Air Force and war, but when it came back to the human character elements I was right there. A lot of poetic imagery as well, a lot of triggering and hard parts to read, but worth going to the end.
There were elements to the book that went over my head when it came to the details around the Air Force and war, but when it came back to the human character elements I was right there. A lot of poetic imagery as well, a lot of triggering and hard parts to read, but worth going to the end.
I thought this book was beautifully written and MacDonald does an amazing job of evoking the complicated feelings of childhood, as well as the minute decisions which can change the direction of life in an instant.
This book absolutely blew me away. I didn't know what to expect after Fall on your Knees (which was also very good), but this was fantastic. It's a lengthy novel, but I just couldn't stop reading. It pulls you in immediately. Fair warning though: this novel is a lot darker than the blurb on the back of the book suggests. I won't say too much for fear of spoiling the narrative, but it deals with graphic (sexual) violence and abuse, and a level of misery that almost rivals A Little Life by Hana Yanagihara (which I loved as well, I have to say).
It is no flippant narrative, though - quite the opposite. It is never sensationalist, or cheap. The story is carefully constructed, and the setting and characters are beautifully brought to life. The way in which MacDonald manages to paint a scene is actually one of my favorite things about her writing: you read it, and after a while her descriptions of surroundings almost seem to blend with your own memories, as if you didn't read it but really lived it. Take this, for example:
"They drive past a park with swings, a slide, merry-go-round and teeter-totters. Paved footpaths run between the houses and open onto empty fields full of possibilities invisible to the adult eye. Among Centralia's PMQs there are sixty-four such empty acres - big grassy circles rimmed by the backs of houses. Someone's mother can always see you. No one worries about children in Centralia" (34).
It conjures the Air Force base and its atmosphere so fully in just a short paragraph...I love that.
The more I read this book, the more it disturbed me, and yet it still surprised me at the end. I thought I had it all figured out, and then I didn't.
Initially, I felt a little thrown off by the sudden time jump near the end, when Madeleine is an adult (and a pretty annoying one at that - though it makes sense she uses humor as a kind of defense mechanism). Yet, having finished the book, I see why the time jump was necessary, and it was so worth it.
There are still many unresolved questions. And while I wish MacDonald had answered some of them, I'm also glad that she didn't. This way, I can fill out the answers for myself, which makes the events seem all the more real. After all, isn't that what we do all the time - enter a situation, experience it, and interpret it subjectively based on limited information? It suits the story and its play with truth, omissions, half-truths, and fiction. It lends the most outrageous events a veneer of realism.
I feel like I want to say a lot more, but I don't know how to say it yet. This novel is really something to process, and I have to let it sit for a while. So, let me just conclude with some more MacDonald's beautiful, poetic writing:
"For three nights she cried into her air mattress - canvas, silty water smell reminder her of the Pinery campgrounds and Lake Huron. She wept for Mike at twelve, she wept for her smiling self at nine, she grieved the smack of a good catch, baseball arcing from glove to glove like a dolphin in the after-supper sun; she wept for childhood, and for anyone who had ever been a child. Amazed, even through tears, at the thematic sweep of her grief. Concentric bands of sorrow radiating outward from ground zero. Centralia" (691).
It is no flippant narrative, though - quite the opposite. It is never sensationalist, or cheap. The story is carefully constructed, and the setting and characters are beautifully brought to life. The way in which MacDonald manages to paint a scene is actually one of my favorite things about her writing: you read it, and after a while her descriptions of surroundings almost seem to blend with your own memories, as if you didn't read it but really lived it. Take this, for example:
"They drive past a park with swings, a slide, merry-go-round and teeter-totters. Paved footpaths run between the houses and open onto empty fields full of possibilities invisible to the adult eye. Among Centralia's PMQs there are sixty-four such empty acres - big grassy circles rimmed by the backs of houses. Someone's mother can always see you. No one worries about children in Centralia" (34).
It conjures the Air Force base and its atmosphere so fully in just a short paragraph...I love that.
The more I read this book, the more it disturbed me, and yet it still surprised me at the end. I thought I had it all figured out, and then I didn't.
Initially, I felt a little thrown off by the sudden time jump near the end, when Madeleine is an adult (and a pretty annoying one at that - though it makes sense she uses humor as a kind of defense mechanism). Yet, having finished the book, I see why the time jump was necessary, and it was so worth it.
There are still many unresolved questions. And while I wish MacDonald had answered some of them, I'm also glad that she didn't. This way, I can fill out the answers for myself, which makes the events seem all the more real. After all, isn't that what we do all the time - enter a situation, experience it, and interpret it subjectively based on limited information? It suits the story and its play with truth, omissions, half-truths, and fiction. It lends the most outrageous events a veneer of realism.
I feel like I want to say a lot more, but I don't know how to say it yet. This novel is really something to process, and I have to let it sit for a while. So, let me just conclude with some more MacDonald's beautiful, poetic writing:
"For three nights she cried into her air mattress - canvas, silty water smell reminder her of the Pinery campgrounds and Lake Huron. She wept for Mike at twelve, she wept for her smiling self at nine, she grieved the smack of a good catch, baseball arcing from glove to glove like a dolphin in the after-supper sun; she wept for childhood, and for anyone who had ever been a child. Amazed, even through tears, at the thematic sweep of her grief. Concentric bands of sorrow radiating outward from ground zero. Centralia" (691).
Too slow for me. Way too much detail without plot progress. Gave up after 400 pages (there was another 400 to go!).
Aaaaargh… this book! It was well written, and though (I think) unnecessarily loooooong, the mystery of it came together in a very interesting way, and compelled me to keep reading. But I was so pissed at the central characters’ cowardice, that led to so much tragedy. Most of all, I think the synopsis of the book deserves at least a hint of a trigger warning. There is a LOT of fairly graphic child molestation and violence that I was not prepared for.