Sunday, July 21, 2013

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks



My rating:  2.6

Brooks takes a shred of historical fact - the first native American Indian graduating from Harvard in the 1600's - and weaves this fictional novel about a young girl and the friendship she develops with a this boy, a Chieftain's son, who goes on to Harvard.  I had two large problems with this novel.
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

1) The narration on the audio version was deplorable!  The speech was so slow and E.N.U.N.C.I.A.T.E.D. I do understand this was supposed to be effecting 17th century speech but, were they slow and stupid or did the narrator assume that the listeners would be?  Many times in listening to this book, I could envision reading the same passage and it would have been much more palatable instead of objectionable.

2) I didn't care about any of the characters.  Bethia is supposed to be a spunky young heroine who's pluck helps her triumph in overwhelming odds.....instead, she is just cliche and tiresome.  I won't go on about the stereotyping of her brother, Caleb or the other characters but, none of them had any depth to draw me in.

Brooks writing is wonderful but, this novel definitely fell short for me.

No comments:

Post a Comment