A review by nguzan
The Wettest County in the World: A Novel Based on a True Story by Matt Bondurant

3.0

there’s a good story here (mostly true, I think?) and it’s colorfully written in a way where you can practically smell the mud, sweat, and moonshine of Prohibition-era Virginia… so why didn’t I love it?

did the nonlinear structure take me out of the narrative too much? like am i wrong for not finding a novelist asking questions at gas stations as intriguing as the violent and romantic dramas within a family of backcountry moonshiners?

or did my brain keep defaulting to the movie version and make me think about Shia LaBeouf too much (and not Jessica Chastain enough) as I was reading it?

we may never know