koreyeleven 's review for:

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

4.0

---

Ok, this will be the longest review I've ever done, but I have lots of feelings and needs to express, sorry. For starters, the book ended much better for me than when it started. I think the intense religious overtone put me off rather quickly in the beginning, which is not entirely the author's fault, but a personal opinion on the topic. I just think everything in this book was about two times too much- 2x as long as it needed to be, the descriptions of the jungle had amazing imagery, but lasted for like 8 pages, and most the characters were way more extreme then needed to be to get the point across. Also, I thought it was a bit biased in general, with the only character (Rachel) representing any opposing views (and perceived American lifestlye) to be an extremely vapid and materialsitc girl who's p.o.v tone didn't change from 16 to 50 years old. On the other hand, I thouroughly enjoyed Adah's character (even though at times extremly cynical) she had very interesting views on the natural order of things. Overall though, I enjoyed the ending tone of the book, and agree with the author's view that many of us live with way more then we need while others barely scrape by (if you can even call it that), something I have experienced while traveling. It has also sparked an interest in the Congo/Zaire history, which I currently have only limited knowledge of. Ok, I'm done... I give it a 3.5, but for the sake of goodreads coarse ratings it gets a 4.