Review Detail

Reader reviewed by artemis

This book started off slow, but picked up toward the middle. The endless descriptions of the people and the landscape really bored me. I haven't seen the Adirondacks, but I would love to one day. The author describes upstate New York as a boring and scary place--mainly because of a murder that occurred there in 1906. The true story behind this story is more interesting I'll admit. What really grabbed my attention was the French language and Mattie's father being French-Canadian. I speak some French myself and think that it's a wonderful language that is is both beautiful and fluid. But Mattie doesn't strike me as heroic, and her sisters were beyond annoying. She waits until the very end to leave, but she should have done so way before. There's some adult-like scenes in the book that aren't for kids and I find it hard to belive that Mattie would know a variety of college-level words when she's had no formal education. The book is pretty long. It's 400 pages. This isn't literature at its finest, but if you're looking to escape reality for a few hours, this will do it.