3.5 stars

I found this an interesting and poignant story but struggled with the way it was told a bit. It had a very oral-story-around-a-fire vibe and it just kind of didn't hit hard for me because of that. It felt like it had a lot of potential and didn't really reach it for me. I didn't have a bad time, though. I enjoyed the story and appreciate the themes.

Okay so I've thought about this quite a bit. I've got to give it to the book that I was unable to put it down. I found it very bingable. But ultimately, I think the whole thing really falls flat as a satire. It's not committed enough. Natalie is meant to be a very "worst" caricature of a tradwife influencer and yet her religion and beliefs didn't feel real enough to me. I know people like this and it didn't seem like the author really did. Either that or she was too afraid of offending people or committing to the bit. Everything about Natalie's beliefs felt to vague and generic.

!!!!!!!!!!!!Plot spoilers below!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the time-travel concept was basically ruined really early on, it seemed like, when she found the microphone in the dirt. That "clue" was waaaay too obvious and made the "Old Caleb" make no sense. He made sense as an actual 1800s farm man. He didn't make sense as the character arc from OG Caleb. I couldn't see the trajectory. It just felt more like a way to try and through readers off the trail than an authentic character arc. So many of the choices, in fact, felt more like "shock value" than real purposeful choice. All in all, I'm settling on 2 stars. Whether or not Burke had any say in how her book was marketed, marketing it as a "biting satire" did it a huge disservice. I was expecting more literary and less thriller. And not a particularly well-constructed thriller, at that.

Initial thoughts: And........I don't know. I'm gonna have to sit with it. I most certainly was enraptured and read this at every chance I got. But I'm not sure how I felt about the ending. I'm gonna let it stew.

This is definitely my least favorite of Strout's works. I did consider DNF'ing a few times in the first half, but ultimately pushed through. I'm honestly really glad I did. The second half of the book did a lot of the work that was lacking in the first half. It ended up being really beautiful.

This was so clever and fun. I had a great time. This was a very different tone than Doomsday Book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I'm gonna go with 4 stars for this one because I liked Borne so much more, but it was a wildly trippy reading experience. He's really the ultimate "just go with the flow" writer. There was a lot of really beautiful (and also grotesque) imagery, especially in the last few chapters. But it was definitely a less conventional story than Borne, which if you have read Borne, you know is saying something. But a lovely read overall. I obviously couldn't put it down.