Thank you Bookishfirst and Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of The Gillespie County Fair by Marc Hess in return for my honest review.
It was difficult to connect with the characters in Gillespie County Fair. They are all flawed, there are too many of them, and their stories are depressing. Add to that the German terminology scattered throughout the book, and the mere 197 pages was an effort to finish. That being said, I loved the cover of the book and the small Texas town of Fredericksburg. I also liked that my impression of the characters kept changing. For example, Carel initially seemed like a good man running out in the middle of the night to help with a devastating fire in the community, but shortly thereafter the reader learned that Carel’s actual intention was to take advantage of his neighbor’s plight to purchase his land, cheaply, in order to build office suites in the advantageous location. He also was willing to bend the law to get what he wanted. I liked that things were not as they first appeared, and this theme continued throughout the novel. Change is coming to this German, farming community, but not all change is good.
It was difficult to connect with the characters in Gillespie County Fair. They are all flawed, there are too many of them, and their stories are depressing. Add to that the German terminology scattered throughout the book, and the mere 197 pages was an effort to finish. That being said, I loved the cover of the book and the small Texas town of Fredericksburg. I also liked that my impression of the characters kept changing. For example, Carel initially seemed like a good man running out in the middle of the night to help with a devastating fire in the community, but shortly thereafter the reader learned that Carel’s actual intention was to take advantage of his neighbor’s plight to purchase his land, cheaply, in order to build office suites in the advantageous location. He also was willing to bend the law to get what he wanted. I liked that things were not as they first appeared, and this theme continued throughout the novel. Change is coming to this German, farming community, but not all change is good.