Review: Unsheltered

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well.

Barbara Kingsolver is clearly an intelligent lady.

Here's the thing, though.

I just don't have time for her philosophical ramblings and debates.

This was DULL and such a complete drainer to read.

We've got a split time line, which is becoming increasingly common, and here, quite honestly, it seems a little pointless. Thatcher is teaching science in 1871, and using Darwin's theories to fight the creationism that's so prevalent in the town. In 2016, Willa's life is crumbling around her, just like the house she's living in.

I'm gonna be honest. When I got over halfway through and there was still not a lot happening besides debates and ramblings on science and politics and a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't really give a crap about, I started to skim. I managed to finish off this book without losing much of the storyline, and I was doing some pretty heavy skimming. My point? NOTHING HAPPENS.

There are going to be a ton of people who love this book. It's extremely clever, and contains heated debates on all manner of topics, and it can get quite philosophical. To me, it was like that family relative that gets drunk at xmas and suddenly has to communicate all their ideas on every subject imaginable. It was too much. I love science, and I'm particularly fascinated by Darwin's work, but I was over 100 pages in before a brief mention of him reminded me that his name in the blurb is what had attracted me to this book in the first place. There was not enough Darwinism to save this for me.

This honestly felt more like a platform for the author to make a bunch of clever points that are important to her, and that's great and all but it just made for such an incredibly boring story.

This is another one of those books that's more about language and ideas than actual story. IE: not my jam. I want to give it an extra star for how much other people might love it, but to be honest it just wasted too much of my valuable reading time for me to feel generous towards it.

With thanks to A&U for my ARC



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