The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

I read The Nightingale by Hannah last year, and liked it enough that when I kept hearing about another book by her that had come out this year I decided to add it to my list. The reason why I had hesitated on reading The Nightingale was because it was just another WWII book, which I am way done with, but the setting for this book was completely different than any other book I've read--Alaska in 1974, with homesteaders who move up to Alaska and learn to live off the land. That setting alone was compelling enough to get me to read the book, and the way Hannah wrote about Alaska was beautiful and convincing in a way that was obvious she'd spent years of her life there. I loved reading about Alaska and about the people who lived there. The story was about Leni, a thirteen-year-old girl (when the book begins) who moves to Alaska to live a more pure life off the land. But the story is a lot more about her father's abusiveness and the fear she and her mother experience and the choices they have to make, over and over and over. The land of Alaska is almost a character in the book, with the danger and the different characteristics that the people face there.

I really enjoyed this book, but I had some serious issues with it too. The story was gripping and the characters were well-done, particularly Leni's, but I was bothered by the last 1/3 of the book, which veered into soap opera land with all the tragedies and changes that happened. I felt like Hannah gave up on the deepest and hardest storylines just by letting something big happen to end it. I didn't like the abuse plotline, and I hate reading about women going back to their abusers. (Every time Leni talks about her parents, she uses the word "toxic"... it got old.) I felt like some of the best parts of the book were about the homesteading, and Hannah let that fall apart just to focus more on the more dramatic, exciting things she forced on her characters. I really did not believe the whole Matthew storyline--the romance and the whole recovery thing at the end. Leni at one point said, "How many conversations had they had when they talked about what would happen when they graduated from college?" And it seriously could not have been many. At all. It could only have been like 5, when you consider how often they were actually allowed to see each other. I hate it when people write romances based off of like three conversations--Leni and Matthew were supposedly best friends, but we know that Leni wasn't allowed to go anywhere near him, and you're asking me to believe they knew they loved each other from six months together at the age of 13? I don't know. It didn't work for me. And OH MY GOSH I hate the teenage pregnancy plotline so much. Gahhh.

However, the Alaska stuff itself was worth the annoying ending. And it definitely sucked me in and kept me interested the whole time.