When I tell you I was not interested in this book at all and then I zoomed through it in a day and a half. It was a book club pick, and I’d read and liked/loved I think three of her books before this one, but the synopsis just didn’t call to me. But, book club pick, so I reserved it from the library.
This book is the epitome of what I mean when I say that writing style is the most important thing in a book for me. Louise Erdrich’s writing style is so compelling that I read this book—literary fiction!—in such a short time, an almost unheard of amount of time for me with books that aren’t “genre”. And I didn’t even particularly care about the characters or the story as much as it was just so nice to be reading her words. (Although, I did care about them by the end, quite a bit.) In another author’s hands, particularly the stories of Kismet and Gary, both separately and together, would probably have been unbearable, and I would have DNFed. But her writing kept me going, until I could get where she wanted me to go.
It’s hard to talk about what this book is about, so you may have noticed I didn’t do that at all. I would say if you like well-written books about the human condition, this might be up your alley. Mostly this has solidified for me that I need to read the rest of her books, no matter what they are about.
Fun fact: the cover was illustrated by the author’s daughter!
