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A review by abby_bookworm
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
“Future Home of the Living God” by Louise Erdrich 3.25/5
This book kept me up until 2am last night reading it. “Future Home of the Living God” is one of those books that I couldn’t put down, but also didn’t love all that much (which is contradictory, I know!). The plot was so gripping, and I really enjoyed the choice to frame the novel as a series of letters. I also thought the reflection on motherhood was really touching and meaningful, and I loved the different members of the protagonist’s family.
However, I felt very detached from the world around me. To be fair, the protagonist herself is detached from this world, which in the span of a few months becomes dystopian and changed. But I didn’t have a good grasp of what was *happening* in this world. Supposedly humans are evolving “backwards” into Neanderthals (?), and because of that the government has taken over and started kidnapping pregnant women in a “Handmaid’s Tale” style. But readers don’t get to see or hear much of that at all, because the protagonist is as in the dark as we are. While I think this could have worked for some, it didn’t work for me. I think I would have preferred there to be multiple POVs in this novel, so that I could get external information from other characters. It might have been interesting to have the POV of the three mothers in this novel (Cedar [the protagonist], Sera [her adopted mother], and Sweetie [her birth mother]).
This book kept me up until 2am last night reading it. “Future Home of the Living God” is one of those books that I couldn’t put down, but also didn’t love all that much (which is contradictory, I know!). The plot was so gripping, and I really enjoyed the choice to frame the novel as a series of letters. I also thought the reflection on motherhood was really touching and meaningful, and I loved the different members of the protagonist’s family.
However, I felt very detached from the world around me. To be fair, the protagonist herself is detached from this world, which in the span of a few months becomes dystopian and changed. But I didn’t have a good grasp of what was *happening* in this world. Supposedly humans are evolving “backwards” into Neanderthals (?), and because of that the government has taken over and started kidnapping pregnant women in a “Handmaid’s Tale” style. But readers don’t get to see or hear much of that at all, because the protagonist is as in the dark as we are. While I think this could have worked for some, it didn’t work for me. I think I would have preferred there to be multiple POVs in this novel, so that I could get external information from other characters. It might have been interesting to have the POV of the three mothers in this novel (Cedar [the protagonist], Sera [her adopted mother], and Sweetie [her birth mother]).