A review by neolx
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

adventurous lighthearted sad slow-paced

4.5

This little novella (or novelette?) is a series of vignettes detailing the events of a woman's extended stay in a small Maine fishing village. The encounters are mostly heartwarming, the writing light on plot and heavy on description (this would make a great Miyazaki film!). A theme that runs throughout is isolation/loneliness, as many of the characters the unnamed narrator befriends are widows or widowers, and most are isolated either by distance, sea, or trade. But this is countered by an emphasis on the importance and pleasures of community, visits from old friends, etc. Though the text is short (my copy is only 88 pages), I found it a difficult and slow read at times, with some characters speaking in dialect, and some vignettes heavy with local vocabulary of the time for which I could not easily find definitions. Overall, this was a moving little book--several passages brought me to tears--with beautiful writing, lovable characters, and touching scenes.

Rating: Rave

(I use the BookMarks by LitHub rating scale--Rave, Positive, Mixed, Pan--which expresses my opinion about a book better than a star rating can)