pminkler's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
cmarie1665's review against another edition
1.0
I found the Chinese characters two dimensional. I think they needed to be fleshed out more. The narrator felt omniscient, not 3rd person limited, so it wasn't right that we only saw Mai Lin and Ahcho from Grace's eyes. However, it was an interesting setting and window into history.
bwolfe718's review against another edition
4.0
You can read my full review (and my interview with Virginia Pye) at my blog about literary fiction by female authors, ReadHerLikeAnOpenBook.wordpress.com. Here's the link: http://wp.me/p3EtWm-df
atschakfoert's review against another edition
2.0
I got about halfway through and couldn't finish this novel. It just felt like it was going nowhere slowly...very, very slowly...so I flipped to the last page and determined that, yeah, it wasn't going to improve. Interesting subject but not well executed in my opinion.
spennock's review against another edition
4.0
River of Dust is set in northwestern China in 1910 about a decade after the Boxer Rebellion. The novel tells of the soul-numbing tragedies that befall a young American missionary couple and their struggle to cope with the sorrow in the framework of their Christian faith. As other reviewers have mentioned, there is a pervasive sadness about the book and you can almost feel the layer of yellow dust settling over the "Reverend" and his wife, Grace as they struggle on. The sadness of the story is somewhat tempered by the mystical quality of the prose and the fact that the novel is based in part on the real life experiences of the author's grandfather.
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