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mollygoods's review against another edition
3.0
Picked up from the library. It was an overall good read. It fell apart too much fore in the last chapters. Didn’t have to have a happy ending necessarily, but geez all the characters that you built faith in just disappoint you in one fell swoop. I understand that it’s perhaps time and place accurate for that sort of outcome but geez. At least - why would Jess be dropped off to that church after everything that happened?
lcoverosey's review against another edition
2.0
I had to send it back,,,, read 3 chapters and couldn’t read anymore. The pastor was obsessed with a backwoods hell and fury religious sermons filled with live snakes , and other strange ceremonies. Nope. Cannot read , I will have nightmares.
amchica's review against another edition
3.0
I had such high hopes for this book because of the rave reviews. I was disappointed. The characters were all pretty much stereotypes and the story was pretty predictable. Lots of grief and tragedy, but nothing really to be learned from it. I can't believe it was compared to "To Kill a Mockingbird." Someone in my book discussion group summed it up pretty well when she said she probably won't remember anything about it a week from now.
mmc6661's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed the story and the different personality of the main characters. Being from N.C. and spending several summers in Hot Springs and Marshall really brought this book to life for me. I will look forward to Wiley Cash's next novel !
geer08's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing and unexpected. A modern day To Kill a Mockingbird.
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
This book tells the story of the Hall family. Growing up north of Asheville, North Carolina in the Appalachian mountains, Jess loves his father, a tobacco farmer, his mother and his older brother, nicknamed Stump, who doesn't talk, but who is his constant companion. His mother is involved in the local Church of God with Signs Following, a small, secretive pentecostal congregation led by a charismatic pastor. In this rural community, everyone knows everyone else and what their parents did. And then one event precipitates another and things go badly wrong.
This is a book whose sum is greater than its parts. Yes, there's fantastic atmosphere and a solid sense of place. And the characters are complex and even the secondary ones are fully fleshed out. The plot is well put together and moves with a sort of inevitable speed toward the conclusion, but this book just works. There are a few false notes. Cash missed a step by not fully exploring the beliefs of the church, which are more complex than he set forth, but as a whole, this was a fantastic book that fully deserves its reputation.
This is a book whose sum is greater than its parts. Yes, there's fantastic atmosphere and a solid sense of place. And the characters are complex and even the secondary ones are fully fleshed out. The plot is well put together and moves with a sort of inevitable speed toward the conclusion, but this book just works. There are a few false notes. Cash missed a step by not fully exploring the beliefs of the church, which are more complex than he set forth, but as a whole, this was a fantastic book that fully deserves its reputation.
dsbressette's review against another edition
3.0
This was a good book set in the South. It had the feel of "To Kill A Mockingbird" as far as the secrets. There was a little something missing, though, that made me rate it 3 vs 4 stars. The writing was fabulous and each of the narrators were well-written.
screamdogreads's review against another edition
3.5
"I'd seen people I'd known just about my whole life pick up snakes and drink poison, hold fire up to their faces just to see if it would burn them. Holy people too. God-fearing folks that hadn't ever acted like that a day in their lives. But Chambliss convinced them it was safe to challenge the will of God. He made them think it was okay to take that dare if they believed."
Southern Literature is such a special and magical branch of literature, it's one that seems to always offer up the most crushing, heartfelt and compelling of stories. A Land More Kind Than Home is a fantastic example of what Southern Literature can bring to the table, it's a real, proper, God-fearing Appalachian story. As far as these kind of novels go, it's eerie and haunting, but never quite delivers on the violent spark that one would expect to be present. That's not to say it isn't violent, it's there, it just simmers away in the background instead of exploding in the face of the reader.
It's a novel of vagueness and subtlety rather than searing, gruesome brutality. And, it's incredibly moving, it's a very, very sad novel. There's a heavy, disquieting sense of agony that seems to burn through every single chapter. Really, A Land More Kind Than Home is a family drama with all the dressings of a grit-lit novel that seemingly never fully commits to outright ferocity and instead chooses cavernous and intense melancholy.
Southern Literature is such a special and magical branch of literature, it's one that seems to always offer up the most crushing, heartfelt and compelling of stories. A Land More Kind Than Home is a fantastic example of what Southern Literature can bring to the table, it's a real, proper, God-fearing Appalachian story. As far as these kind of novels go, it's eerie and haunting, but never quite delivers on the violent spark that one would expect to be present. That's not to say it isn't violent, it's there, it just simmers away in the background instead of exploding in the face of the reader.
It's a novel of vagueness and subtlety rather than searing, gruesome brutality. And, it's incredibly moving, it's a very, very sad novel. There's a heavy, disquieting sense of agony that seems to burn through every single chapter. Really, A Land More Kind Than Home is a family drama with all the dressings of a grit-lit novel that seemingly never fully commits to outright ferocity and instead chooses cavernous and intense melancholy.
"I wanted to open the front door and holler at him, let him know that he shouldn't do it, not because I was afraid that he'd damage the crime scene or contaminate the evidence but because I knew he might not be ready, might not ever be ready, for what he'd see under there. But I also knew that fathers want to see what's become of their sons, and sometimes, they can't forgive themselves if they don't. "
Yet, there's a profound purity to the storytelling of this tale. It's rather simple, but beautiful. A Novel full of bleakness, a novel to fill your soul with sorrow, that's what this is. This novel is a slow burner of a tale that forces the reader to watch the destruction of a family unfurl without hurry. It's not ramped up at all, sometimes, though, that's exactly what you need. While A Land More Kind Than Home may not exactly be shocking or ghastly, it's still charming and delightful and offers up a brilliant introduction into this type of literature.
"Sometimes, when I get to thinking about it, I wish I'd have blown his damn head off right there and left him laid up in the snow with his brains hanging up in the limbs of some old pine tree. I didn't do it, but I'll be damned if I don't think about it every day. Every single day."
ja3m3's review against another edition
4.0
This superbly written book captures life in the hills and hollers of North Carolina almost effortlessly. From the detailed descriptions of the mountains to the cadence of the language Cash tells the tragic story about what happens when fanaticism, fear, and family collide.
A Land More Kind than Home centers on the events of one evening when an autistic child dies mysteriously at a worship service presided by a con-artist, snake-handling preacher. The story is narrated by three different people: Adelaide Lyle – an elderly church member who doesn’t trust Pastor Chambliss and has taken the children away from the services, Jess Hall – the younger brother of the child who dies who knows things that he doesn’t understand, and Sheriff Clem Barefield – who must discover the truth no matter the cost or consequence.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. A book filled with guns,lust,religion, whiskey, and snakes isn’t a bad way to spend a weekend.
A Land More Kind than Home centers on the events of one evening when an autistic child dies mysteriously at a worship service presided by a con-artist, snake-handling preacher. The story is narrated by three different people: Adelaide Lyle – an elderly church member who doesn’t trust Pastor Chambliss and has taken the children away from the services, Jess Hall – the younger brother of the child who dies who knows things that he doesn’t understand, and Sheriff Clem Barefield – who must discover the truth no matter the cost or consequence.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. A book filled with guns,lust,religion, whiskey, and snakes isn’t a bad way to spend a weekend.