Thursday, July 14, 2016

2016 book 129

Jean Hegland's Into the Forest
I guess this is now a movie starring Ellen Page, which is how I first heard about it, but you'd think this book would have been on my radar before: it's about a pair of teen sisters living deep in the woods in a cabin, alone, after society has sort of fallen apart. I love those realistic post-apocalyptic books! This one didn't quite work for me--mainly b/c the narrative voice just never rings true. It's ostensibly narrated by a seventeen year old girl, and even though she dreams of going to Harvard, there is just nothing realistic about it! I don't mean thematically, I mean it sounds like a literary adult writing it. It just threw me out every time. Even a pretentious teen would not write that way. Still, parts of this are very well-done--particularly everything with their father, and with plants--but the improbable event that occurs halfway through just bugged me and it was sort of all downhill from there. Content warning for rape and other stuff. C.

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I just went to rate this on Goodreads and I'VE READ IT BEFORE. I completely blocked it out! Please ignore the first sentence of my review.


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