wordsaremything's review
adventurous
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we just have one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.
STRONG four star. I almost considered a five star.
This was chosen as the book for my company's book club. I have been alright with historical fiction, so decided to give this one a whirl. Plus, Tom Hanks plays the Captain in a movie adaptation, and he's usually in pretty good pictures. (He's on the cover of some book editions.)
Reading this with Tom Hanks as the Captain in my head actually made this more enjoyable, I think. Kidd is supposed to read as hardy, and full of heart, and compassion, but a little bit snide, and respectable. Kidd travels from town to town, acting as a news aggregator, and reading out stories from across the globe to people in small town, USA. A friend asks him to cart Johanna, a 10-year-old girl who has lived the last 4 years of her life with Native Americans, back to her relatives in San Antonio (this is a long trek).
Johanna remembers none of her life pre-capture, and feels very strongly that she IS Native American (Kiowa, in the book), and remembers none of the English language. Her and Kidd then begin the loooong trek to San Antonio. And of course, when you road trip with someone, you learn about them, and you become close with them.
I was almost crying by the end of this book. I found the lack of quotation marks a little difficult to follow at times, but I deeply enjoyed each of their arcs and development as people. The writing style is close, and barren, like the land they travel through. There are no sweeping passages, and very little time is even spent in monologuing thoughts of Kidd. Jiles did a wonderful job showing the relationship between these two people, and I really felt like I was traveling in a wagon through the plains of Texas.
... as they had drifted the had gathered trouble and a great deal of peculiar knowledge about human beings, what human beings would do or say under extreme duress. it was not something you could do anything with but it interested them all the same.
A lifting, running joy. He felt like a thin banner streaming, printed with some regal insignia with messages of great import entrusted to his care.
He made a list: feed, flour, ammunition, soap, beef, candles, faith, hope, charity.
STRONG four star. I almost considered a five star.
This was chosen as the book for my company's book club. I have been alright with historical fiction, so decided to give this one a whirl. Plus, Tom Hanks plays the Captain in a movie adaptation, and he's usually in pretty good pictures. (He's on the cover of some book editions.)
Reading this with Tom Hanks as the Captain in my head actually made this more enjoyable, I think. Kidd is supposed to read as hardy, and full of heart, and compassion, but a little bit snide, and respectable. Kidd travels from town to town, acting as a news aggregator, and reading out stories from across the globe to people in small town, USA. A friend asks him to cart Johanna, a 10-year-old girl who has lived the last 4 years of her life with Native Americans, back to her relatives in San Antonio (this is a long trek).
Johanna remembers none of her life pre-capture, and feels very strongly that she IS Native American (Kiowa, in the book), and remembers none of the English language. Her and Kidd then begin the loooong trek to San Antonio. And of course, when you road trip with someone, you learn about them, and you become close with them.
I was almost crying by the end of this book. I found the lack of quotation marks a little difficult to follow at times, but I deeply enjoyed each of their arcs and development as people. The writing style is close, and barren, like the land they travel through. There are no sweeping passages, and very little time is even spent in monologuing thoughts of Kidd. Jiles did a wonderful job showing the relationship between these two people, and I really felt like I was traveling in a wagon through the plains of Texas.
... as they had drifted the had gathered trouble and a great deal of peculiar knowledge about human beings, what human beings would do or say under extreme duress. it was not something you could do anything with but it interested them all the same.
A lifting, running joy. He felt like a thin banner streaming, printed with some regal insignia with messages of great import entrusted to his care.
He made a list: feed, flour, ammunition, soap, beef, candles, faith, hope, charity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Gun violence
Moderate: Racism, Trafficking, and Colonisation
Minor: Pedophilia and Child death
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