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Idaho

a Novel
Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Port Moody Public Library.
Feb 02, 2018m0mmyl00 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Emily Ruskovich writes beautifully. It’s obvious she knows about the wilds of Idaho, and she crafts poetic sentence after poetic sentence. The places in her story — the house, the woods, the tractor, the prison — are real. I can see them and she makes me know what it’s like to be there. I loved reading Idaho. But the main event — a mother inexplicably killing one of her daughters with a hatchet — just lies there with no reason. The book doesn’t make a mystery of the killing; it’s never really explored and never linked to anything else in the book. Am I to believe she killed her daughter because of a song that was sung by her husband and her daughter’s teacher? I’m not buying that. It left me baffled and feeling a bit shortchanged.