E. G. Merrill

Beautiful

Revisado: 01-22-25

Never awkward, always congruent clear interesting and of a beautiful integrity and helpful insights

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Unusual and very relatable thriller

Revisado: 07-26-24

Best performance ever of a scientifically educational, exciting and funny, very clever story of survival that kept me enthralled and able to understand levels of science I might not have attempted to if the pace and premise of this super space story weren't so well built.

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Lighthearted, funny and sprinkled with useful facts

Revisado: 06-23-24

I enjoyed this so much, with the wonderful British sense of humor of a relatable modern woman with just the right dose of self-knowledge and humility making me snigger, giggle and guffaw at intervals while really learning a few important lessons along the way.

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Beautiful timeless pure good Story

Revisado: 04-06-24

Beautiful writing, well crafted Story, credible world building, timeless and historically relevant values, surprising twist, lively dualogue-based narration of complex but clearly painted reality and realities. Really just a wonderful voyage.

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Beautiful and touching

Revisado: 01-01-23

Sloppy editing mistake ! Readers Beware, chapter 4 is erroneously placed before chapter 3 - which completely disrupts the flow of this beautiful life story, wonderfully narrated by the author who cannot help but touch the heart and soothe aching sadnesses. After recovering from the discombobulating error and almost giving up on the book, I was again moved - to the core.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Incongruencies marred this promising story

Revisado: 12-08-22

This book has a clever plot and an interesting idea and the prose is fine.
But I was continually jarred by the author's inability to ring true.

He chose to narrate some roles through the experience of women but as main characters, these women each showed an awful lack of what constitutes feminine strength. Their only strength was... masculine.

Depth of character was only achieved by the old white men in the story, who do undergo slight transformation in the stories. Older white men are the only ones who are at all sympathetic or interesting.

The key character is supposed to be an ecological warrior - She is named Willow but has none of her namesake's resilience and rooted essence. The spoilt hypocrisy of her speed popping, chain smoking self-absorption is hard to reconcile with the rigidity of her purely organic soy- and chick pea diet. She undergoes no transformation at all - an inflexible woman who cannot gently bend towards her son and who remains ever closed minded, maddeningly unaware of obvious connections to a man who showed more maternal instinct and caring as her father than any female character in the book does.

One sole reference to Buddhism was unnecessary and so off-key, incorrect and uninformed that I almost stopped wanting to listen to this author, who may be knowledgeable about lumber and carpentry but lacks in his understanding of biodiversity, philosophy and ecology.

The narrator is an expressive actress whose intonation I find distracting and sometimes even condescending of true emotion. It is a pity that each beginning of chapter and voice recording is silenced, as if the pause button was touched too late, after the first word was already uttered.

More than anything, the author understands opioid addictions. I was sad during most of this clever puzzle of a book. All in all, it isn't bad. It's a good yarn and capably performed. But it is not alive, clear or shining - it doesn't ring true as an acoustic instrument would. It feels artificially constructed, held together by persistent distrust and secrecy, universal fear of destitution, stoicism, pride in silent deep trauma, greed - and the seemingly inevitable, devastating destruction of natural resilience.

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Gorgeous Barbara Kingsolver at her best

Revisado: 11-16-22

The lovely lilt of the author's voice is as her words. All colors of humanity and life and woven into a tapestry that is as rich, smooth and luscious as it is jilting, rough and horrorific. She takes us by the hand to visit the darkest holes, dresses us up in facts and frightening truths and cradles us gently on a moss covered rock where the leafs are silent and the water gurgles around so we can again bear to see our reflection with eyes jolted and heart ripped open; another new moment to live love and look at what is with wonder. This book is political poetry, a gardener's inspiration and bold bravery. A whole circle danced with all the colors of human value. So grateful to hear it again.

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Intimate voyage that sheds light in dark corners

Revisado: 11-02-22

Beautiful prose just as we love to expect from Kingsolver. Screaming social issues lit up by love. Almost too sad and painful to get through some parts, but when you do, the reward is amazing. By absorbing the words in this book I gained a deeply transformative bird's eye view of the abuse of "free market" power as it is appllied in by the ruling powers in tobacco, education and pharma and how it directly harms us all forcing a path through disabling addictions and desperation. Through the author's and narrator's extraordinary and honest storytelling we are led safely back to sanity through a legendary rite of passage, told by a young boy born and growin' up in an Appalachian hill town ravaged by drugs, failing systems and historic condescension. I love how this deeply personal story sheds clear light on the dark machinations of a money economy versus land economy. Bright recognition of the parallels between injustices to indigenous and so-called hillbilly people. Heart breaking and beautiful, even providing chapter 61 with super practical tips on how to kick a drug addiction - even if you are a nature-needing personal living in the city! Love this author so much. The narrator is an exceptional actor.

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Heartbreaking light in dark corners

Revisado: 03-06-22

Poet and anthropological word-magician Kingsolver takes us by the hand as a child would a trusted cousin, walking back through dark corridors, telling family stories of American regular folk in a momentary intimacy.

The most horrid truths are not exposed but discreetly unveiled through children's memories and innocent eyes, laying bare the brutality of all the -isms that smother the beauty of family and farm values in America.

Through these touching and relatable stories we reach an understanding of the ancestry of bigotism and racism that reaches down through the decades, exposing the sad honesty of inherited pain and handed-down hatred. Told by her characters who are immediately recognizeable as our own innocent inner children and sisters in a fight to learn to live a decent life, these stories lay bare the open wounds that will surely heal if air, compassion and forgiveness can be allowed to envelop the perpetrators of hand-me-down cruelty. Kingsolver gives us the tools and space to breathe that hope as we briefly visit these small, silenced real lives.

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Important work of insight and sharing

Revisado: 06-03-21

Loved the accent, the brittle rage of injustice gone on too long, the little sing songs the honest attempt at staying true to the truths that defy words for their understanding and use. Helpful, historical, relevant to anyone intetedted in justice and equal rights and respect for life's diversity and anthropology. Practical and relatable. Friendly and intriguing.

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