The Daughters of Erietown

This book should have been promoted under the YA genre. Very disappointing. The content is mainly dialogue set up to describe the characters. The dialogue is not genuine. It\’s as if the writer can only bring them to life through speaking words that are strung together for the purpose of moving the story from one decade to another. It was surprising to me that a writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize would sound like someone writing for the first time and sounding like a teen submitting a story for a writing class. Could only rate this as a 2 star which was actually one star above my original impression but I give her credit for effort. Actually the reader will derive little from the intention that was to cover women facing life choices throughout the decades before Women\’s Lib \”saved them\” in the end.

The year is only half over, but I\’ll consider myself lucky if I read another book as good as Daughters of Erietown. Every single character reminds me of someone. I grew up in a kitchen with that red brick linoleum. I coveted my aunt\’s train case. I loved my family and felt guilty that their lives weren\’t enough for me. This was a beautifully written, touching book, and I loved every word.

I loved this book for so many reasons. I admit to being predisposed to loving it–I\’m a squealy kind of Connie Schultz fan–but I didn\’t expect, even from her, the number and depth of the layers in Erietown\’s daughters. My heart ached, a lot, for all of them. I didn\’t like all their decisions, didn\’t always even like either them or the men they loved. And yet, I felt every emotion they had, both positive and negative. Sometimes it hurt. A time or two I had to put the Kindle down and breathe deep for a while because of that hurt. I don\’t know how to end this review, but let me just say reading it was a most excellent gift to myself. Thank you, Ms. Schultz.

I have always admired Connie Schultz as a journalist and columnist (and her husband rocks), so I was excited to learn she had written a novel. (After all, Anna Quindlen managed it beautifully!) But I was sorely disappointed with the writing quality. It is heavy with dialogue, using it excessively to attempt to develop character. It honestly fell flat and came across as profoundly unrealistic. There was so much dialogue that it was often difficult to keep track of who was speaking. The story line was OK, although not particularly enlightening. All in all, it was not at all what I was hoping for.

Rarely do I find a novel where I want to put it down just so I can enjoy it longer. Usually I want to race through it. Not this one. I stretched it out because I was enjoying the read and understanding and recognizing the humanity of its characters. Such a compelling book. I recommend that you beg, buy, or borrow this one to discover just what is in it that is compelling to you!

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