Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens
Feb 1-10, 2019

What a heartbreaking, yet somehow deeply satisfying book! At first a little hard to follow with the "slang" of North Carolina, I soon got a rhythm and was clinging to every word, every piece of poetry. This is a story about abandonment, isolation, racism and cruelty that had me in tears, but in the end turns rather triumphant.

"She feels the pulse of life, he thought, because there are no layers between her and her planet."

Although I was a little put off at first that it was turning into a murder mystery, the evolution made sense and the outcome was not the least bit predictable. Again, I feel like the more I like a book, the less I have to say about it. But this is one of the best I've read in a while, and definitely got me out of an early 2019 slump that was beginning to worry me. Highly recommend!

* * * * *

Sold on a Monday

by Kristina McMorris
Jan 19-27, 2019

What a missed opportunity. I expected a beautiful, heart-wrenching account of children sold during the Depression, and instead I was disappointed by a cheesy, foolish caper. Nothing about it felt timeless like good historical fiction so successfully does. The dialogue was incredibly corny and the author even went as far as describing a woman in an orphanage as "colored." Come on. How does that add to the story when it's not even used in the vocal exchange between characters?

It's not a story about the children who were sold by their dying mother. It immediately lost its focus on the hardships of the Depression after the first few chapters. It was about a reporter with a shallow storyline and a woman inaccurately misrepresented in 1931. I really can't believe this book got as many positive reviews as it did. It was supposedly inspired by a real-life photo of four children next to a for sale sign, but the (mis)interpretation was ridiculous.

* * * * *