Welcome to Litsy!

I enjoyed this tale of Willa Knox in a falling down house in modern day Vineland, New Jersey in and Thatcher Greenwood a high school teacher in a falling down house in 1870s Vineland. I love the juxtaposition of the 19th century of Darwin by the principal of the high school, to the annoyance of Thatcher and the Trumpian views of Willa‘s father in law Nick. It just goes to show that you cannot use logic and reason to undermine good old blind belief

Barbara Kingsolver is a very good writer, and this book is rich with metaphor and well-drawn parallels between the 2015 and 1870 storylines that illustrate the ideas about America she‘s trying to convey.

But. It‘s not a good book.

The problems are:
- the book is tedious and the story and characters didn‘t draw me in
- I disagreed with much of her overall sociopolitical message, which made it even more tedious to read.

#weekendreads

Reading this one for my in-person book club which meets this Thursday. I suggested it because I enjoyed Demon Copperhead tremendously. This one, unfortunately, is a slog. I‘m about halfway in, and there‘s no plot to speak of - it‘s long on characters discussing social issues and short on story.

Speaking about Darwin's Finches (on my last post), if anyone is interested in the theory of evolution and Darwin's work, you might enjoy the tagged book.
Now, it's been almost two decades since I've read this (and it was a translation) so I was very young then and I'm hoping the writing isn't actually as dry as I remember 😅
Still, it's an interesting book and I'd love to read it again soon.
#Naturalitsy
#WinterGames2024 #XmasChaCha +5pts

Don‘t read this book unless lots of animal death and racism don‘t bother you and you‘re just super into Victorian science. I‘m Brooke H on Goodreads if you want to read my full review. (And yes, I did read this entire book to prep for a trip to the Galapagos. Of which there was one chapter. So.)

I have enjoyed Trent Daltons books and this was good but not as enjoyable. I felt like his detail about every little description of rocks, dirt and forest was too descriptive! It was a good story and a had some beautiful and sad moments. Worth a read but not his best.

★★★★★

I received a free copy of this book through LibraryThing in exchange for a review.

Piesse has written a wonderful, meandering exploration of the Darwin family, their childhood garden in Shrewsbury, her own journey into motherhood as an academic, garden labour and the people who do it, and the importance of place and the living world as we all face the crisis of global heating. ⬇️

On page 161 (50% done)

#UniteAgainstBookBans #LetUtahRead