mikerickson@bookwyrm.social reviewed News of the world by Paulette Jiles (Thorndike Press large print western)
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3 stars
An interesting and compact little Western that makes full use a unique protagonist for the genre and balances atmospheric prose and action without letting either run the show for too long.
Hard to review something like this when the book blurb that markets it gives away 90% of the plot, but I enjoyed it well enough. The third person omniscient point of view felt a little too detached for me and I wish we had been tied a little closer to "Captain" so that the reader wasn't aware of things before the characters were. I'm not saying this story needed to be told in first person, but I wanted to feel more involved and not like I was watching the story from 10,000 feet.
Still, this world felt authentic and lived-in, and all of the characters felt real and their actions felt justified; no plot holes here! Even got my …
An interesting and compact little Western that makes full use a unique protagonist for the genre and balances atmospheric prose and action without letting either run the show for too long.
Hard to review something like this when the book blurb that markets it gives away 90% of the plot, but I enjoyed it well enough. The third person omniscient point of view felt a little too detached for me and I wish we had been tied a little closer to "Captain" so that the reader wasn't aware of things before the characters were. I'm not saying this story needed to be told in first person, but I wanted to feel more involved and not like I was watching the story from 10,000 feet.
Still, this world felt authentic and lived-in, and all of the characters felt real and their actions felt justified; no plot holes here! Even got my heartstrings tugged on a bit at the end, which is no small feat for such a short book.