A Story Full of History

filled star filled star filled star star unfilled star unfilled
naturegracereader Avatar

By

I have seen this book everywhere, and a lot of people claim it is the best book they have read this year. For me, I think that there is too much hip for this book. The book was pretty average for me. There was nothing wrong with it but also nothing that stands out beyond the rest.

This book has a lot of ancestral, tribal, native elements to create a unique backstory and setting within the book. This is how the fantasy elements come into the book. The tribal group the main girl is a part of has many unique customs and beliefs that make up a lot of what drives the story. The book also includes some of the languages that are spoken in the tribe to add even more of this aspect into the book.

For me, this book wasn't really about the mystery, but more of just the story and the main character's own struggles. But having the mystery in the book did add some nice suspense. There were also some nice shocking reveals but not in connection with the mystery. Before the big reveal, there were a lot of different clues to lead you to the truth. I didn't guess the whole truth but the build-up was way too long, so when it finally happened it wasn't a very big shock. Also, it isn't like the motive is a secret. It is pretty clear from the beginning the motive and how it happened, the whole thing is just figuring out who.

I didn't realize this book would have a bug sports element, so I was thrown off at first because I can find that having that leads me to be very bored with the book. But the way it was done in this book wasn't boring and kept a nice balance that made having it incorporated into the book benefited instead of worsening.

I thought the audiobook narration was okay for the most part. But there were quite a few occasions where I could tell they had inserted audio into the main audio clip. The background noises changed like you could tell it had been edited in. This mostly happened around when the tribal language was spoken. I think it is because maybe the narrator said it wrong so they had to fix it. But it also happened at other points. It isn't a super big deal but it did throw me off when it happened and distracted the flow of the book. I also found the audio sounding a little echoey. It sounded like the narrator was in a big empty room. So instead of having an isolated voice of the narrator, the background noise was also noticeable.

The story does deal with a lot of difficult topics like prejudice, murder, addiction, and sexual abuse. So just a warning it could trigger some people. But the book takes these topics and allows Daunis to grow and learn from these things and grow stronger.

I just think this book was too predictable and included a lot of useless information. It was slow a lot of the time and she just pocks around trying to play detective. I also don't think the relationship is very realistic in how it came to exist and then how it proceeds afterward. I couldn't see them together and this had me not rooting against them but also not rooting for them either. Their relationship is more of a formal one so having it turn to be even more close than friendly had it be too forceful and unnatural.

So there were some good elements, some bad. But for me, it just didn't meet my expectation and is just a middle-of-the-road type of book.