I may be the only person on earth that didn’t like this book. I was certainly the only person in my library book club that didn’t. We went around the room giving our ratings out of five, and it was 4s and 5s all around (and one 7!) and me, with my 2. I stand by it. This book was not my jam.
The first thing I’ll say in my defense was many of the people that said they loved it also said “but I hated the last chapter.” And look, if the author doesn’t stick the landing, and instead does that thing where it seems like they were in a rush to ship it out and whipped the end together in a hurry, wrapping up all the plot lines in a bow (or in this book’s case, several elaborate bows) then by my estimation, a 4 or 5 rating is off the table.
The book starts strong with the story of two white orphans at an Indian Training School during the Great Depression. I was immediately gripped by the narrative and willing to forgive some tropes in lieu of good historical fiction, but Kreuger was so focused on writing AN EPIC that he missed the mark on writing a good story. He swung the pendulum between a paint-by-numbers runaway kids story with “so preposterous you can see nothing coming” twists. Sprinkle in some religious overtones and a character clairvoyant reveal and you’ve lost me.
But what was it about the ending that had me so riled up? This is going to be spoiler-tastic, but here is my summation of the last chapter of the book. The character’s mother, whom they thought up until this chapter was their aunt, tumbled out the window with the evil orphanage owner who was chasing him to have him imprisoned. The orphanage owner died in the fall and his aunt/mom (who was injured, but okay) quit being a prostitute and opened a dress shop during the Great Depression (in what was a failed fudge shop) with some of her other prostitutes and they were wildly successful. Like. WUT.
Someone in my book club said, “well, when you put it that way…” My sassy response? “I didn’t…but William Kent Krueger did!” And like y’all, that isn’t even the epilogue, which puts more bows on top of everything. It’s like an after-holiday sale, bows all over the place, and slashed prices.
But again, it’s rare for me to disparage a book, so I’m not saying it’s a bad book, just not for me. A pull quote on the front cover said that if you liked “Where the Crawdads Sing” you would like this book and I really didn’t, but if you did, maybe give it a go, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.