A review by forsan
Miracle Country by Kendra Atleework
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
I was given a copy of this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers to review (unbiasedly), and I absolutely adored it.
This book is billed as a memoir, and it is; it recounts her childhood in a small town in the Eastern Sierras; her family's dynamics, especially those involving her mother, who passed away from an autoimmune disease when Kendra was 16; the drive to escape the Eastern Sierras that led her to LA and Minnesota; and her eventual return. But it also interweaves Kendra's memories with the history of the Eastern Sierras region, the history of the Paiute tribe and the continuing water-rights saga that has parched the region to help SoCal spread. And it does so masterfully.
I loved this book so much. The love that Kendra has for her home region is extremely clear, and the nature writing throughout this book, the way that it anchors Kendra's story to the land, is excellent. (There are also a lot of references to and quotes from other nature writers, especially female ones--Mary Austin, Terry Tempest Williams, Rebecca Solnit, Ellen Meloy.) More generally, the prose is overall lovely and lyrical. The story definitely isn't linear in the slightest, which was a bit surprising at the beginning, but it worked really well. And if there ever was a book to be read outdoors, this is definitely one of them--I read the entire thing sitting outside over the course of a couple days, and I'm tremendously glad I did so.
This book is billed as a memoir, and it is; it recounts her childhood in a small town in the Eastern Sierras; her family's dynamics, especially those involving her mother, who passed away from an autoimmune disease when Kendra was 16; the drive to escape the Eastern Sierras that led her to LA and Minnesota; and her eventual return. But it also interweaves Kendra's memories with the history of the Eastern Sierras region, the history of the Paiute tribe and the continuing water-rights saga that has parched the region to help SoCal spread. And it does so masterfully.
I loved this book so much. The love that Kendra has for her home region is extremely clear, and the nature writing throughout this book, the way that it anchors Kendra's story to the land, is excellent. (There are also a lot of references to and quotes from other nature writers, especially female ones--Mary Austin, Terry Tempest Williams, Rebecca Solnit, Ellen Meloy.) More generally, the prose is overall lovely and lyrical. The story definitely isn't linear in the slightest, which was a bit surprising at the beginning, but it worked really well. And if there ever was a book to be read outdoors, this is definitely one of them--I read the entire thing sitting outside over the course of a couple days, and I'm tremendously glad I did so.