A review by peytonktracy
Down the Rabbit Hole, Chicago, Illinois, 1871: The Diary of Pringle Rose by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

2.0

This Dear America felt like it had a pretty cool concept and target and then just fell short. It had a different structure to it that I couldn’t get used to, of huge retrospective chapters telling us why she chose to run away from home rather than showing us and giving us reason to support her choice from the start. It worked in the end sort of, but it’s just not what I have grown to expect from the series. Also, this one more than the average Dear America, felt like a sampler of subjects the author wanted to touch on that got shoved together and ended up feeling like a lot without giving enough time to each one. We covered cruelty to animals and children, the violence of striking, the ethics of labor unrest, the Great Chicago Fire and how fires were fought... And for a diary about the Great Chicago Fire, according to the title, it only got the last ten pages or so and then the narrator was already on another train out of the city. I liked the characters for the most part, especially Gideon, but it just felt like it could have been longer and better. If this was supposed to be about Pringle getting everything she wanted in a way she didn’t expect, why did she only get those things in the Epilogue and the last entry was “we survived the fire but lost an adoptive family I loved but anyway on to San Francisco for no reason I guess”? Just feeling let down.