A review by lorimichelekelley
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

2.0

Audio edition: This book was so boring! It seemed to me that the author read "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" and decided to write one with a female protagonist. It just didn't work for me. The story was mundane and the characters uninteresting - they were just so good. If you've ever read a book written for the Amish, it's kind of like that. There's stuff going on, but everyone is just so peachy clean with feeding the chickens and walking to church, that it just doesn't ring true. I felt like it was telling the story from the viewpoint of a child who just never realized that his parents are real human beings with complicated emotions and moral struggles. If you're into that James Herriot kind of story and wouldn't mind a little magic realism mixed in, you might like it.