You didn’t think the ending was just too pat? How could Matt need a wheel chair one day and the next be lifting people into canoes? The ending too a lot away from the book for me.

Oddly enough, I thought the 70s references were something she Googled. I don’t think this crowd would have been listening to Maria Muldaur, John Denver or the The Bee Gees. Certainly there was darker, heavier rock’n’roll that would have been a more likely draw.

**Spoiler**

So many reviews refer to PTSD and that (obviously, to them anyway) that is what Ernt suffered from. And surely he did to a degree. But I believe he might have been/become an abusive husband regardless. He meets/impregnants/marries a girl who is 16 when he is 25. And at 30 he leaves them to enlist in the Army? Certainly he wasn’t drafted. So he needs to be adored, hero-worshiped and catered to (by a much, much younger girl) and that continues on after he returns, albeit much more damaged than he was when he left. I think he would have been a jealous, abusive husband even if he had not gone to Vietnam.

Cora is completely believable (regardless what contemporary feminists say) as a character and acts according to type. She is hemmed in with no where to go. This is where the 70’s plays into the story (although the bit about not being able to get a credit card with her husband’s or father’s signature is bunk). She is trapped, she know’s it and she tries to make the best of it she can. And to protect the one thing that is valuable to her: her daughter. (And yet, she’s still young and flirts inappropriately at times.) But she too finds herself able to survive. Both Alaska and Ernt.

And the community they became a part of was fascinating and, to me, on point. Especially when Thelma cut Ernt off after Mad Earl’s death.

I liked this a lot more than The Nightingale.

I always struggle with perfect endings!

I think my expectations (based on loving The Nightingale so much) may have been excessively high, setting almost anything up for disappointment.

Looking forward to seeing your thoughts, Ann Marie.

I actually like it more now that when I first finished, so I guess it’s stuck with me, too.

I think you’re right. If the first part of the book had the problems, but ended really strong, I think I’d have rated it a little higher.