Scan barcode
A review by olivias
A Constellation of Minor Bears by Jen Ferguson
3.0
I started out loving this book, but felt like it just kind of lost momentum for me as it went on. Agree with many of the comments above, and I particularly liked the exploration of Molly and Hank's changing relationship around their complicated reactions to his accident and resulting disability. I loved the PCT aspect of the book (I loved Wild so already knew a bit about the trail. I'm curious if those who weren't familiar with it had any difficulty following along with the concept of it and terms like "trail angels", or if it was self-explanatory). I loved Those Pink Mountain Nights a few years ago, and do agree with Diana that I thought that one was a little stronger, although this one feels more YA to me.
Generally I love Ferguson's writing, but I noticed in Pink Mountain Nights as well that sometimes I find this author's writing a bit hard to follow. I'm able to figure out what she means, but there are definitely sentences and paragraphs that I re-read several times, and just couldn't really parse her phrasing or what exactly she was saying. This might be a writing style or language use/dialect type of thing, and maybe others don't have this issue. I do find it distracting though and quite frequent.
I found the jumping between perspectives, particularly Molly to Tray to be a bit jarring. I think this is partly because I was getting very engaged in the storylines, which is a good thing, but sometimes I would be several paragraphs into a new chapter before I remembered that it was a different perspective and had to go back and re-read. I also found the changing dynamics of the relationship between Molly and Tray to get a bit old. I appreciate that the story explored the ways that romance and love are not mutually exclusive and that romantic love isn't perfect, but I started feeling confused and annoyed by the end of it in terms of what they were doing and what they each thought they were doing, which rarely felt clear or aligned to me. The nicknames for Molly also felt overdone.
The interludes about song were a cool idea, but just didn't land for me, and again, felt like I couldn't fully understand the writing. Similarly the bear references felt a bit heavy-handed and never really came full circle for me.
I think the end just felt a bit like it was just playing out things that had already been discussed to death or thought about to death in the characters' minds, so I kind of lost the interest I felt at the beginning. I still enjoyed reading it, and thought there were really important things covered, I just feel like it kind of fizzled out for me.
Generally I love Ferguson's writing, but I noticed in Pink Mountain Nights as well that sometimes I find this author's writing a bit hard to follow. I'm able to figure out what she means, but there are definitely sentences and paragraphs that I re-read several times, and just couldn't really parse her phrasing or what exactly she was saying. This might be a writing style or language use/dialect type of thing, and maybe others don't have this issue. I do find it distracting though and quite frequent.
I found the jumping between perspectives, particularly Molly to Tray to be a bit jarring. I think this is partly because I was getting very engaged in the storylines, which is a good thing, but sometimes I would be several paragraphs into a new chapter before I remembered that it was a different perspective and had to go back and re-read. I also found the changing dynamics of the relationship between Molly and Tray to get a bit old. I appreciate that the story explored the ways that romance and love are not mutually exclusive and that romantic love isn't perfect, but I started feeling confused and annoyed by the end of it in terms of what they were doing and what they each thought they were doing, which rarely felt clear or aligned to me. The nicknames for Molly also felt overdone.
The interludes about song were a cool idea, but just didn't land for me, and again, felt like I couldn't fully understand the writing. Similarly the bear references felt a bit heavy-handed and never really came full circle for me.
I think the end just felt a bit like it was just playing out things that had already been discussed to death or thought about to death in the characters' minds, so I kind of lost the interest I felt at the beginning. I still enjoyed reading it, and thought there were really important things covered, I just feel like it kind of fizzled out for me.