A review by mike_morse
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

3.0

It’s beautiful writing and I did care about the characters but I got the feeling that the book got away from the author. There’s an interview with the author at the back of the paper book which seems to indicate that he didn’t know where the book was going as he wrote it. That may be good at times, but what we have here is a lot of Hawaiian mystical spirituality and magic that does nothing but rain misfortune, criminality and poverty on the characters. That can’t be what the author wanted to say, could it? Throw in some sibling rivalry, doubt about parenting skills, search for sexual identity, dealing with dementia, life in prison and what do you have? A mess is what you have, albeit one in beautiful prose.