Books

Leif Enger's best-selling debut is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, and a love story, in which "what could be unbelievable becomes extraordinary" (Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald). Enger brings us eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy in the Midwest who has a reason to believe in miracles. Along with his sister and father, Reuben finds himself on a cross-country search for his outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder. Their journey unfolds like a revelation, and its conclusion shows how family, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, the most tragic of fates.

Here it is. The long anticipated review of the book that took me more than a month to get through. My motivation to get through this book was nearly non-existent until the past few days. As per usual I finished the book in a hurry with one goal in mind: that next book. What was different about this scenario was that I had more pages than usual to bang out and finish up.

I've said many terrible things about this book over the course of our time together and I want to clear things up. This book was not nearly as horrible as I let on at first...second and third. I have decided that since the book gets off to such a slow start, I was lost right out of the shoot and had to fight too hard to get back into the book. Call it my stubborn nature, I think "determination" sounds better, but I did not put this book down unfinished and I am glad I gave it a chance.

The ending of the book was pretty good. It seemed as though the author forced some action to be able to include some story. He basically had to manufacture action to allow for his predetermined reaction. This made the end of the book pretty choppy. The action was pretty out of place, but I understand how it was necessary for the reaction.

One constant throughout the novel was the author's writing. Enger wrote a book beautifully. Notice I did not say he wrote a beautiful book. What he wrote was not the best, but how he wrote it was fantastic.

At the end of the day I still list Peace Like a River as a "Don't Read". Even though the story came on at the end, I cannot think of anyone to whom I would recommend this book. Thank you to my uncle who suggested I read it, but I did not love it.

Buy Peace Like a River $9.75

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