Four star review, originally posted here on January 5, 2024.
One of my NY resolutions this year is to get back to writing book reviews. I used to be religious about it, but fell behind over the past couple years when pandemic-era audiobooks got me running through books faster than I could find time to write about them. Anyway, none of this has anything to do with this particular book, but I mention it because:
1. I’m more likely to actually stick with the plan if I write it down somewhere publicly.
2. My reviewing skills are rusty (at least that’s my excuse if this review stinks.)
I think this book would have worked better for me if I hadn’t done it as an audiobook. I would have enjoyed the opportunity to pause and digest information, to go back and reread passages, and to see how the information is laid out paragraph-wise when we switch between the primary narrative and the historical backstory. That may be all I’d need to bump this to a 5 star review.
Even in audiobook form, though, this book lit a fire in me. The story itself is suuuuuper interesting. Someone else referred to Boone as Liam Neeson in Taken and dang if that’s not close to spot on. The difference is this story is even better than Taken because Jemima, the kidnapped girl, is a certified badass in her own right (unlike the useless idiot in Taken.) If anything, I wish we had way more information about Jemima herself, because she sounds so incredible. Alas, there’s only so much material available out there I guess. This girl should have her own freaking TV or movie series. Beyond the kidnapping itself, I learned a lot about a time in place in history with which I am thoroughly unfamiliar. I spent hours going down Wikipedia rabbitholes reading up about Boone and the frontier, and I plan to continue. So if the goal of any great history book is to inspire readers to keep learning more about said history, mission accomplished.
But on top of that, this book sparked something very personal in me as a hobby-level writer. Years ago I published my first novel (Holly, The Captain, and Handsome Jack- go check it out!) It’s about a feisty young lady during colonial times (Hey! Jemima Boone was a feisty young lady during colonial times!) My book’s the least historically-accurate historic fiction in, well, history (I wrote it almost as a joke with no initial intention of showing it to anyone), and while I was excited to self-publish it and share with the world, I haven’t read it or advertised in ages because, frankly, I’m embarrassed by the glaring inaccuracies. One made-up detail I dropped into my book was about 1 paragraph involving alleged Indian attacks on the frontier (which, spoiler alert, was just rabbits raiding a garden.) Reading this book, I thought back to my own book and cringed at the recollection. I wondered how bad my Indian-attack section was. Curiosity got the better of me, and I pulled out my old work and started reading. Not to toot my own horn, but it’s a much better book than I remembered (as long as you can look past the made-up history, which is a big ask). I also recently completed my draft of my most recent novel (also about a feisty teenaged girl, different setting, but lots of the same themes as Jemima Boone), and the combination of reading Jemima, re-reading Holly, and prepping for my 3rd book’s publication all got me really fired up to get started on my 4th book. I’ve continued re-reading stuff to keep getting into the mood. I re-read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, my favorite book from childhood (also about a feisty teenaged girl in a historic setting). I re-read my 2nd novel (Hope the Little Fox). I’m now re-reading the draft of my 3rd novel (Hope the Daring Fox, coming soon!) I’m thinking of other stuff I’d like to re-read for inspiration, which lead me to thinking “Why the heck don’t I have a library card?” so now my new NY resolution is to get a library card and go to the library (where maybe they’ll teach me how to avoid these run-on sentences that are unbecoming of someone claiming to be a writer.) I’m outlining book 4 (Hope the [SOMETHING] Fox, title TBD) and drawing tons of inspiration from Jemima’s story and all these other tales that she’s brought to me.
Guys, that’s a lot of inspiration. All thanks to Matthew Pearl and his decision to tell this story. That’s damn good stuff, and an excellent start to my new year.
(Did I say my reviewing skills are rusty? I started by babbling about resolutions, whined about audiobooks, mentioned the book for 2 seconds, then plugged my own books for the majority of the review. Someone needs an editor, but I don’t care; leave it all in!)
Helga without the H 