Love the writing but not so much the performance

I love Barbara Kingsolver’s books. All of them, without exception, but, she should not be reading them out loud. Stick to writing and let a professional do the performance. I’ve managed to listen up to chapter 8 but I’m afraid I’m going to read the rest myself.
The reading sounds almost like a mother reading to a child and the sing song voice fluctuations puts one to sleep.
I’ve recently listened to Demon Copperhead and it was absolutely brilliant. The story, the performance the characters and their development. I loved it so much I didn’t want it to end.
I’m sure the rest of Unsheltered will be brilliant too but definitely not to listen to Barbara reading it.
You’re obviously tremendously smart and talented but don’t go spoiling it by thinking you can read it better. You can’t do everything brilliantly. Stick to writing.

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great writing, engaging characters, important issu

loved it! Kingsolver communicates important issues in a thoroughly entertaining story with believable characters .

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What a treat of a book

Beautiful storytelling that I didn't want to end and kept me captivated... I loved the overlapping themes and relevance. Kingsolvers writing has a delicate intricacy of detail and the witful use of metaphor without being copious or ornamental. Very smart and soulful too. .. a "treat" to have been read by the author.

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Historical detail

Great narration. Good storyline, engaging characters. This book was well worth a listen and I’ll recommend it to my friends

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Great story, but Kingsolver is no dramatic reader.

The story was really entertaining. The book is written with two parallel story lines which tie up nicely in the end. However Barbara Kingsolver would do better to have a dramatic reader read her stories rather than read them herself; her voices fall flat.

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Two stories in one

Fascinating parallel stories in different times, but what will stay with me are the ideas around the necessary move from consumer culture where material possessions and financial wealth are the markers of success, to the possibility of a new world where people are forced to be content with less, which creates a new freedom from the urge to achieve material success at all costs.

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Truth telling and catastrophic collapse

Riveting dual stories of catastrophic collapse of houses across two different centuries, and parallel tales of the challenges of truth tellers in societies that want to shut out new realities.

Barbara Kingsolver has unearthed the untold story of world class biologist and naturalist Mary Treat, who corresponded with Charles Darwin about species evolution whilst living in a society that damned the theory and its adherents as ‘indecent’ and unchristian.

Her recreation of the conversations between the unconventional Mary Treat and the protagonist, a Darwinian science teacher are a window into another era of discovery, and the challenges of scientists to convince people of the merits of rational deductive scientific investigation and knowledge.

She spices it up with the spectre of a capitalist landlord of a superseded utopian dream - enslaving farmers lured to ‘Vineland’ in layers of debt if their crop fails.

To give us a present day context, the story is interwoven with the tale of the 21st century family living at the same address. Middle aged Willa and Janos, who have had both their careers implode, have moved into a falling down house they inherited with their adult children, ailing objectionable father and new grandchild, baffled by how all their middle class striving has led them to near destitution.

I appreciated the juxtaposition between the popular reception of present day ‘The Bullhorn’ presidential candidate, and failure of western capitalist societies to face up to the costs and consequences of our over-consumption and toxic waste; with the popular rejection of Darwin’s theory of evolution back in the 1870s and how the New Jersey Vinelanders we’re in thrall to their capitalist overlord Landis.

Relevant and captivating.

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6 people found this helpful

Loved it

Fascinating story based on real events, and so cleverly linked to present day concerns. I felt for these characters

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4 people found this helpful

The past and the now and the future.

Long after I had finished this wonderful book, so many ideas, thoughts, connections and questions continue to come to me. I loved the narration (which is rather rare when an author reads their own work) and the voices of Nick,Willa and Thatcher and Mary were perfect. As a person of Willa's generation I so understood that fear, that love for family and never once judged any of them harshly. The narrative is written with so much compassion and tenderness ever for the most difficult of characters.

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I’m just not smart enough for this book

I LOVED The Poisonwood Bible and so many of Barbara Kingsolver’s earlier books, but the last few have gotten progressively harder to get through. Very probably I’m just not intellectual enough to appreciate the philosophical banter between the main characters, I’ll admit. Like other reviewers have said, this felt like a thinly disguised lecture on sustainability and the precarious post-GFC economic circumstances middle class people find themselves in today. There was very little plot or actual character development. I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Lost the will to live about a third of the way through.

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9 people found this helpful