Cecelia_J

As a former teacher, I wish I had had this book to read to middle schoolers and up to the 8th graders to whom I taught US History. It is so well researched about life during the dust storms of the 1930s but also tells a gripping story about the Dolans and their neighbors and family during those years. I was especially impressed by the family dynamics that led part of the family to move to New York to avoid the dust and save their younger children. but mostly the 2 older children who stayed with their father to keep their farm working as best they could. Thank you to Catherine Matthias for creating this engrossing story.

I love mysteries and especially Australian stories (Jane Harper is a favorite of mine). However, this book didn't come through for me. There were too many characters in the beginning -- I had to make a chart about what children belonged to what parents to keep everybody straight. As much as I empathized with the mother of the missing girl, the drugs theme seems to be in so many stories these days that it wasn't interesting to me. And the ending disappointed me altogether -- what mother would bring her daughter back to live in the community where she had so many bad memories? Sorry, just not for me.

I am not a fan of long family sagas that can drone on for hundreds of pages, but this new author has given us a novel of vignettes about four families in upper Maine over most of the last century, who are far from dull or mundane. She has chosen her words well to tell their stories of grief, heart break, lost love and secrets in a completely compelling way. You might find many of the characters unlikable, and they often do not like each other, but they are always connected and drawn back to each other by strong family bonds that force them to reveal their love and guilt and dependence on each other -- so much like my own large family. While their foibles can bring smiles and laughs to you, they might also bring tears. I will be watching for Ms. Winslow's next novel and hope it appears soon.