review 1: It's funny to me that so many others loved this book. With the unstylistic punctuation and the lack of quotes, I'm not sure how anyone can love this book. I've got a 100 pages to go, and getting to the end of like watching a bad movie, you just want to know how it turns out, but you have lost interest in storyline. The pace is very slow, tedious, due to the punctuation that creates multiple sentence halts. It does not flow. The other thing missing is a reference to a timeline of the year, or age of the characters which would help cement the reader into the place. It's like the story just sort of floats anonymously above the characters. Also, the characters are not tied together in any meaningful way. What was Talmadge's relationship with Caroline, and why does the author a... morelways use her entire name? Tedious. Why was there never any sign of the sister who ran away? The story could have been meaningful if June and Della were Talmadge's nieces, then at least there would be a significant reason why he is determined to get her out of jail. He never showed any interest in her while she was one the farm, why start now? In my view, it's a pretty contrived story. I live in Washington and know that the Chelan area is beautiful, the history is intriguing, and yet she skips all details of the early settlers of the area. I looked forward to reading this book because of the local setting, but have to admit it is a huge disappointment. review 2: I loved the writing, the storyline, the characters, the setting. When Jane and Della go into labor, it is riveting. Like other readers, I wondered at that point, now what? Then the story becomes frustrating, because no one does what you want them to do, or at least what I think they should do, which was just be happy, you forsaken souls found someone as damaged as you are to belong to. Now, since they couldn't just live happily ever after, I'm forced to try to understand why they couldn't, which is very challenging to me personally and I think the true greatness of this book, if that makes sense. Like another reader, I also wanted some solution and also thought of what if Jane and Della were Harriet's children, which led me to at least partially understand that that's why Talmadge took them in in the first place. But why was Talmadge so withdrawn from Angelene? Why couldn't Angelene have a more happy ending? Why was Caroline Midday never just Caroline? less
