My mom thought I might be interested in this book, and since it deals with themes of isolation and nature I can see why it appeared on her radar. Unfortunately I wasn\u2019t very impressed with the writing overall, and the pacing of the story in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the good news. While reading this book you get the feeling that the writer not only knows about Alaska but considers it a place where they belong. Especially I enjoyed the descriptions of nature, and the excitement of the family who starts a new life there. There is a real small town vibe to the place when they arrive from Seattle in the 1970s, and there are lots of scenes with odd-ball neighbors pitching in to help each other. The writer gives a balanced picture of life in Alaska, showing the light and dark sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problems I had with the book were with the storyline, which seemed to move very slowly at first. I was happy to let the author take their time and set up the pieces, but towards the middle and end of the book the pace suddenly accelerated. I felt like resolution was being crammed into the book at the last minute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The characters were often written very simply as being good\/bad\/nice and not very complex. I also had a problem with the father in the story, who is so one-dimensional that I just couldn\u2019t buy his motivation or struggles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the final section of the book is just totally on a different vibe with the rest – like a go-for-broke tear-jerking attempt. I guess I just prefer writing with a little more subtlety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next I am reading The Hidden Globe by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mom thought I might be interested in this book, and since it deals with themes of isolation and nature I can see why it appeared on her radar. Unfortunately I wasn\u2019t very impressed with the writing overall, and the pacing of the story in particular. First, the good news. While reading this book you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-Z8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}