Book Review
Sep. 24th, 2019 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariAnimal Dreams
by Barbara Kingsolver
This lovely novel is about Codi Nolines, who returns to her hometown of Grace, Arizona, after her beloved sister Hallie leaves to do relief work in Nicaraugua and her father starts exhibiting the signs of dementia. Here Codi must confront her past and find her path into the future. Along the way she discovers an incipient environmental disaster that threatens the town, and rekindles a relationship with Loyd Peregrina, whom she knew in high school.
Kingsolver captures so perfectly the warmth of small-town life and the pain of feeling like an outsider to that life and warmth. Although the story is more slice-of-life than dramatic sweep, it still has emotional depth and narrative weight. I especially liked Codi's relationships with her sister and Loyd, which had depth, richness, and fierce feeling. Within these smaller moments and ordinary relationships, Kingsolver explores themes of integrating the past and the future, dealing with loss and memory, and the journey to self-understanding.
by Barbara Kingsolver
This lovely novel is about Codi Nolines, who returns to her hometown of Grace, Arizona, after her beloved sister Hallie leaves to do relief work in Nicaraugua and her father starts exhibiting the signs of dementia. Here Codi must confront her past and find her path into the future. Along the way she discovers an incipient environmental disaster that threatens the town, and rekindles a relationship with Loyd Peregrina, whom she knew in high school.
Kingsolver captures so perfectly the warmth of small-town life and the pain of feeling like an outsider to that life and warmth. Although the story is more slice-of-life than dramatic sweep, it still has emotional depth and narrative weight. I especially liked Codi's relationships with her sister and Loyd, which had depth, richness, and fierce feeling. Within these smaller moments and ordinary relationships, Kingsolver explores themes of integrating the past and the future, dealing with loss and memory, and the journey to self-understanding.
