Charming until the end (literally). . .

books:


	• Crow Lake (Today Show Book Club #7) Mary Lawson Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2003 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 123 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great story. Well written.

It has been a few months since I read this one and like many of the people who comment here, I read a lot. This is one book that has stuck with me and has made me think many times about the plot. I fell in love with the characters and then disliked them in the next chapter. The author has a way of making you see many points of view at one time. I found the story to be believable and well written.
There is a lot to this book and many sub-plots going on at once. (A great reason to read it again!) I stayed up really late unable to put it down.
This book will definitely be a keeper on my bookshelf.

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Rich with family history

This is the best book I've read in recent months. From the perspective of Kate, the third child, it tells the story of her family and, to a lesser but equally compelling degree, the neighboring family in this tiny Canadian community.

Lawson's plot is tight; she develops the characters very well, and ties each of their stories back to things in the past, namely their great grandmother and her desire to have her children educated. There's a constant idealism for the next generation to do better, and the climax of
the story is when Kate goes to her nephew's 18th birthday party, and tries to decide what to bring as a present as he goes off trying to "do better" for the next generation.

There is some tremendous sadness in the book, especially in the beginning, but don't let that stop you from going forward. In a way, Crow Lake reminds me of Jane Smiley's "A Thousand Acres"; both are about farming families, relationships among siblings, connection to the land.

I recommend this if your looking for a story with depth or just a great, engrossing, rich book to read.

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Charming until the end (literally). . .

Crow Lake was yet another one of those books that I had bought years ago, only to have it sit on my shelf, constantly getting passed over in favor of other choices. I have to say that if I'd known how involved I'd become in reading it, I probably would have picked it up much sooner.

Upon finishing Crow Lake a couple days ago, I admittedly have some mixed emotions. I read this book in just over a week and constantly felt excited to get back on the train for the chance to read further. However, I must say that while I liked this book a lot, I did not love it. And I'm afraid that comes down to my disappointment with the way the book ended. If you asked me during the first four parts of the book what I thought of it, I would have said it was an incredibly story. But the last two parts did not sit well with me. I was bored, almost disinterested, which seemed nearly impossible for me to understand because just a day or two before I was literally excited with longing to get back to this book. Without question, there was definitely a distinct point in my reading where I crossed a line and couldn't get back the enthusiasm I had once had.

What makes me perplexed is that I'm not really sure what exactly threw me off about the last parts of the book. I know that adult Kate was not my favorite character; I certainly liked her much more as a little kid and a growing girl. Perhaps the late domination in the book of her as a grown-up, with her questioning her teaching at the university and her relationship with Daniel, was too much for me. I liked her better in the context of her family and on the ponds of Crow Lake. I just didn't feel invested in that part of her life which might explain my eventual lack of emotion when the ending did occur. Although the story seemed somewhat lacking in an ending, to be honest. And it wasn't that the ending was forced. You could see that the details of the secret family tragedy were something the author was aiming at from the beginning and throughout. But still, it didn't feel like the proper ending. And I wish I could say what would have made it better, but I am afraid I'm just not sure.

Overall, I give Mary Lawson a good deal of credit for writing a book on a topic that I, quite truthfully, couldn't care less about, and still make it seem interesting and, dare I say, even slightly romanticized. The trips to the pond that Matt and Kate took while growing up were incredibly sweet and their shared interest in studying pond life was equally touching. Personally, I am not a fan of the outdoors and certainly blanked out many times during my environmental science class in college, but she created a world that even I seemed to want to be a part of, horrible tragedy aside, at least through the first hundred plus pages of the novel. For that credit is definitely due. I love Canada, but my visits have only consisted of the city of Toronto, and therefore the utter wilderness of Crow Lake holds a great deal of mystery for me and I felt it was a perfect setting for this book.

Lastly I must mention that in the early parts of the book, besides the relationships among the siblings in the family, their responses to the family tragedy, and their trips to the pond, that my favorite parts of the book were those that involved the character of young Bo. Bo was an incredibly realistic character as a baby - full of honesty and full of life. Those scenes with Bo by the water or dialogues as she learned nursery rhymes were adorable. When Bo grew up, she lost some of her charm, but that's not entirely unexpected. As it turns out, the novel itself sort of did the same thing.

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INSIGHT INTO FATE'S OBSTACLE COURSE

Crow Lake is reminiscent of books like "A Northern Light" and "Atonement". We follow the story of the books narrator, Kate Morrison, from age 7 to age 29. The untimely accidental death of her parents finds Kate and her siblings, Matt and Luke (the two older brothers) and Bo (her 1 ½ year old sister) facing choices and challenging decisions that alters each of their lives forever.

Lawson utilizes her writing talent to capture not only the plight of Morrison family but to surround them with an assortment of friends, family and neighbors equiped with noble hearts and curious idiosyncrasies.

I did have a problem with the "adult Kate" who came across as self-absorbed and unforgiving. It seems that for all her knowledge and formal education she has never been able to grow out of her adolescent mental image of Matt and as a result is left with unresolved feelings of guilt and a self imposed emotional isolation.

Crow Lake serves as a warning to us all of the potentially destructive nature of hero-worship and challenges us to examine our definition of success and how we measure it. 3 1/2 STARS

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compelling

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author was able to draw me in and I just wanted to keep on reading. I liked the setting which was clear but not described to the point of overkill. I thought the characters were compelling and make us look inside ourselves.

What a wonderful book - I look forward to the next one.

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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