Frustrating!

[Barbara]

This author is a beautiful writer but this book was very hard to follow and it was very difficult to keep the relationships straight. Even creating a written family tree was too difficult! My entire book club agreed and many felt they needed to read it again to gain a full perspective of the relationships in the story. It felt disjointed.

[Lynn]

I also feel I need to read it again to understand the relationships but I'm just not that interested to do so. I love Louise Erdrich and highly recommend her other books. Last Report of Miracles At Little No Horse and Beet Queen are a couple of my favorite books.

[William]

You two did better than I did, I couldn't even finish it. I bailed about 125 pages in as the idea of finishing the book felt like a monumental chore.
It's a rare occurrence that I don't finish a book I've started but I just couldn't connect with the story and had no interest in the outcome.

[Susan]

I have to agree completely. I'm bogged down at about page 100 and every time I contemplate picking it back up I find myself picking something else up instead. I'm sure if I did start in on it again I'd be totally lost.

[Ksab]

I tried to read this book several months ago and was thinking about trying again.Maybe I need to make a geneogram(family tree drawing) of the family relationships in this novel-in order to keep them "straight" like I do with clients when taking a social history!

[Loras]

I also had a hard time keeping track of the cast of characters. I just finished Round House and did find it easier than The Plague of Doves. However, maybe one of the many points of these stories is the complexity of the family relationships of the Native Americans.

[Julie]

Just read this book for my book club this month and I found myself reacting in the same way as this thread. The book came full circle at the end but the journey was meandering and not terribly enjoyable. I am glad I stuck it out to the end so I saw what the author was doing but dang if I know what we will be discussing about this book at our book club meeting. A LOT of editing would have tightened this up and taken some of the meaningless-seeming parts out....

[Leah]

I agree with Loras that Round House was much easier to follow, but the web of relationships in this book didn't really bother me. It can be confusing at times, but keeping them all straight wasn't a requirement for understanding the story.

I think this book was such a story within a story within a story (I got a little confused during Marn's sections, they seemed like a completely different book), that remembering how everyone was connected wasn't a vital part.