I loved this book! It took me a little bit to get used to the style, which can be a bit confusing, and if fairly explicit, bisexual, profanity-laced sex is going to bother you, you’ll probably want to avoid this one, but in terms of our books for Idaho, it was definitely a win! I […]
This one reminds me a bit of the thriller I read and posted about in New Hampshire Pre-Visited–it really didn’t do it for me in terms of plot or characters, but there were some great descriptions of Idaho and Lake Coeur d’Alene that I really wanted to post. I’m reading my way across the USA–5 […]
This was the one I was waiting for! This has been the best one by far for Idaho. The characters are real–and not just because many of them are historical figures–multi-faceted, flawed, real human beings. Yes, there is racism and discrimination, but there are also people who connect on a personal level with the main […]
Chris Crutcher may be my new hero. That’s probably a little strong, but I do love what he did with this book. I think I’ve said this before, but when I was growing up, my mom felt very strongly that kids should be encouraged to read and that one way to do that was to […]
Ugh! I know this book is highly acclaimed and has won awards. All I can say is that either those people geeked over the loveliness of the prose and ignored that it made no sense, or I’m a lot more stupid than I thought. I don’t claim to be a genius, and I actually don’t […]
Idaho has been full of odd contrasts. Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation was preachy and full of shallow stereotypes of Idaho and its people. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson was a depressing, maddening, but lovely bit of prose that (hopefully) is not terribly revealing about the people of Idaho while being full of gorgeous descriptions of […]
While most of the reviews I read indicated that people either loved it or hated it, I’m much more ambivalent about this book. I really didn’t like the main character or many of her choices (though I didn’t hate her, and in many cases I could understand those choices). I also could see why some […]
I associate Idaho with several of my cousins who grew up in Eureka, Montana–the “nearby” mid-sized towns included Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, in the panhandle. But Idaho also makes me think of Craters of the Moon National Monument, a volcanic site near the center of the state. And Picabo Street, the Olympic skier, who grew up […]