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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
This is an astonishing book that powerfully immerses the reader in the lives of the characters involved, as well as the issues surrounding them, both personally and globally.
Mari McGavin arrives back in her hometown on Little Great Island in Maine, her young son, Levi, in tow, and a passel of problems following her. It seems the cult in which she’s been involved, and where her son has grown up, has revealed itself as the dangerous, delusional place it is, and she escapes a husband, a leader, and a community for the sake of her and her son’s survival. But coming back to a place where she’s burned bridges and alienated various family and friends has its own challenges, creating obstacles for both her and her recalcitrant son, who’s angry and confused about why they left his father and the only home he knows.
Concurrent with Mari’s story is Harry Richardson’s, another child of the island. Back to close out a family property after his wife’s death, and at the urging (and pressure) of two siblings, Harry is lost in grief and confusion about what he wants to do and how he can possible accomplish it. He and Mari reconnect after many years in between, and as two wounded souls, find some solace in each other.
But it’s short-lived at best, problematic at worst, as Mari, with her cult connection, her reputation as a youthful troublemaker, and her unconventional philosophies related to climate change and what should be done about it, is viewed with suspicion within the small, insular island community. Finding a job, making a home, creating a protective cocoon for her and Levi are made all the more difficult by those realities, and as Harry is pulled into her world, he finds his own life increasingly impacted.
When it becomes known that the leader of the cult and Levi’s father are on their way to island to reclaim the boy, tensions ratchet, as do the conflicting opinions about what to do about a huge development company looking to turn the bucolic environment of the island into a tourist mecca. Clashing views, dangerous events, and evolving emotions push the story forward in a narrative that is beautifully written, propulsively driven, and profoundly realized. A high recommend.
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
In Little Great Island, author Kate Woodworth swaddles you in a host of socio-economic problems and life’s challenges. The beauty of her writing lies in how she carves hopeful paths through them all with her fully developed characters that feel like neighbors. This is a novel about growing from past mistakes and grief that we can all use right now. Even if you don’t have your own experience of island life to draw upon, her depiction ebbs and flows across the page with honesty and truth. The characters believe it and readers will too. Let this one sit on the shelf with a small but mighty list of accurate portrayals of life in Maine.
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes