This is one of those stories that's mainly just about people. Particularly one Taylor Greer, her illegally adopted Cherokee girl named Turtle, her mother who's tired of a husband that does nothing but watch tv all day, her boyfriend who's desperately in love with her, Annawake Stillwater who wants to do right for her people, and several more characters scattered hither and tither. Kingsolver seems to have a magical gift for describing ordinary things. She has such a way with analogies that I have found myself re-reading a sentence just to relive it's beauty. She's awfully good with people, too. I know every single one of her characters as if I have met them in real life. There's no big action scenes here, no wild car chases or serial killers on the prowl. It's just a woman desperate to hold on to the little girl who came into her life by chance and a nation of people who have suffered so much that each child they lose to the world outside their own is a devastating blow. Simple, raw, and oh so good.