One word review: zzzzzzz
Rambling review: You know when a book has won awards, both critical and populist, which puts lots of pressure on you both enjoying and appreciating it? And you feel like a lesser person if you don’t?
Yeah. That.
I really, really struggled with this book. It’s a relatively short read, especially given that the line spacing feels double spaced, but honestly? I couldn’t finish it. It should be really interesting, cross dressing, non problematic homosexual sexuality (i.e. some people are gay, they got over it), Native American genocide, inter racial adoption… The list goes on. The writing style utterly bored me. It didn’t grip me, I didn’t find it poetic, I didn’t feel the characters – I just couldn’t like it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
There were two quotes I wrote down which I enjoyed. These were poetic:
“I loved my father when I was a human person formerly”
“Making the grass seeds drunk with ambition”
That’s it, I guess…
P.S. Am I the only one who struggled to emotionally invest?!
Star rating:
Year published: 2017
Publishing house: Thorndike Press
Amazon Summary: After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War. Having both fled terrible hardships, their days are now vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in. Then when a young Indian girl crosses their path, the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach, if only they can survive.
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