mikerickson@bookwyrm.social reviewed Lone Women by Victor LaValle
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3 stars
Sometimes I'm initially lukewarm about a book, but ultimately over time I forget the details and instead remember how the book made me feel, such that I look back on it more fondly. It's happened enough times that I have a pretty good hunch that's gonna happen with this one. Still, I like to base my reviews on how I felt within a day of completing it, so that's what I'll do here.
The algorithms are gonna peg this one as historical fiction horror, but really it's a western at heart; this kind of story couldn't really be told anywhere other than the American West, and being set in 1915 it almost feels like this is the absolute latest this could be told. We have a protagonist who is leaving the only home she's ever known for middle-of-nowhere Montana because her family had just been murdered (she knew how, but …
Sometimes I'm initially lukewarm about a book, but ultimately over time I forget the details and instead remember how the book made me feel, such that I look back on it more fondly. It's happened enough times that I have a pretty good hunch that's gonna happen with this one. Still, I like to base my reviews on how I felt within a day of completing it, so that's what I'll do here.
The algorithms are gonna peg this one as historical fiction horror, but really it's a western at heart; this kind of story couldn't really be told anywhere other than the American West, and being set in 1915 it almost feels like this is the absolute latest this could be told. We have a protagonist who is leaving the only home she's ever known for middle-of-nowhere Montana because her family had just been murdered (she knew how, but the reader doesn't find out until later), and she's lugging a prohibitively heavy trunk with her as her only possession. It's an instant hook.
The book is divvied up into thirds, and with extremely short chapters (I think there are over 60 for just a 285-page book), things kept moving along nicely. However, the first third was told solely from Adelaide's perspective, and then the middle and end sections bounced around between multiple different characters' points of view. I found myself liking Adelaide so much that I wished I'd just stayed with her the whole time rather than seeing too much of what else was going on, but that's more of a personal preference than a legitimate complaint.
We touch on themes of loneliness, community, environmental survival, racial isolation, gender expression, complicated family dynamics, we got lesbians, we got technological changes. And also blatant supernatural phenomenon and literal monsters. This book was definitely aiming to do a lot. But at least it didn't come off as a series of checklist items being ticked off for their own sake or the "throw everything at the wall to see what sticks" approach. I've read this kind of story before and seen it done better, but I've also seen it done much worse. But ask me again in a few months and I'll probably rave about this one in hindsight.
