It Takes A Village

      A good book feels like coming home to family. You easily slip into its pages and automatically feel a sense of belonging. You are either a part of the story or you're an intimate friend the author is telling the story to. A very good book is one that you can reread and feel like you're home.

     I finished reading The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald last night. I don't normally say this; in fact, I don't think I've ever said this about a book: I hated it. Sometimes a book is boring. Sometimes a book leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Sometimes a book leaves you feeling indifferent. When I closed MacDonald's book last night I wanted to chuck it out the window. In all fairness, it's probably because I'm a mother now. That's the only way I can understand my reaction. It reminded me of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. A girl is sexually assaulted and murdered by her neighbor. Some people guess who the murderer might be but he is never caught and eventually dies in a random accident. In this book, a group of girls are sexually assaulted by their teacher and one of them is murdered. I thought it was the teacher, which I'm sure the author was counting on. Because then she springs on you a surprise ending, which is unbelievably enough, more disturbing (at least to me) than the idea of the teacher being the murderer. MacDonald also takes forever to get to the gist of the story. We spend page after page reading minute details before, during and after the crux of the story. Then to find out what actually happened you have to endure this torturous attention to detail for what seems like another billion pages. To be quite honest, I skimmed through the last quarter of the book just to read what I felt was important. When I was done I was mad. Mad at everyone in the bloody town who somehow had a hand in this girl's abuse and murder, whether intentionally or unintentionally, whether consciously or unconsciously. MacDonald writes, It takes a village to kill a child.  My sentiments exactly! There is no happy ending to this story. The true murderer is never known to anyone but the reader. The people from the town are forever marked by this tragedy. It's depressing, it's maddening, it's awful.