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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
One of the more try hard books I've read in a while. I felt like the author, whom I usually enjoy, was intentionally employing obfuscating language in an attempt to convey apartness, someone distant in time and in space. Conveying secondhand language of another era, but it felt cloying and heavy handed. Obviously colonialism is terrible. Did this book have anything more to say? I'm not so sure.
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Colonisation
Moderate: Violence
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
dark
reflective
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
muuuuuuch darker than anticipated, liked it much more than anticipated. definitely deserves a reread.
I had a hard time getting into this book. Maybe it’s the writing style which is more descriptive or poetic prose.
Wow, the writing. Part way in I asked myself, Am I reading a entire book about one girl alone fleeing in the wilds? Will she join up with anyone else? It turns out, yes to the first, no to the second, and it was gripping and beautiful. The pacing, while keeping it interesting, does justice to her slow and arduous journey. She is resourceful in sheltering, finding food, avoiding many dangers. She dreams throughout, of what she has lost, and in the end, of what could have been, had she survived to live out her years in the wilds (doing so alone she thinks would not truly be living). Her big thoughts--about god, evil, her astonishment and empathy for creatures she encounters, the significance of naming what she sees, the audacity to think she has nearly crossed the continent--add up to a brilliant fable for America in miniature.
An early passage after a storm crossing the Atlantic: "Even now in the knit and purl of mist that made the girl shudder, even as the ground seemed to be breathing as though she were a flea and it was the breast of a giant, even within the scope of all she had lost, which was nearly everything, the thought of a voyage out to the new world suffused her with awful sorrow."
An early passage after a storm crossing the Atlantic: "Even now in the knit and purl of mist that made the girl shudder, even as the ground seemed to be breathing as though she were a flea and it was the breast of a giant, even within the scope of all she had lost, which was nearly everything, the thought of a voyage out to the new world suffused her with awful sorrow."
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
This caught me by surprise. I really enjoyed the plot. The ending was a bit jarringly abstract but still beautiful. The story resonated with my views of loving untamed spaces and felt classic in the ways it tested and purified the main character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
The word that springs to mind for this book is visceral ... every element of the pre colonial lands is harsh and true and keenly experienced through the body of the girl
The preciousness of her objects and small tastes of food gives one a new found appreciation of these most basic things
The preciousness of her objects and small tastes of food gives one a new found appreciation of these most basic things
challenging
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No