Ahab's Wife

Loved it. It definitely starts out slow (pleasant, but sort of “surely this cannot go on for all these pages?”) but then it gets nuts, but not in a “did someone put this dust jacket on a different book?” sort of way. I appreciated the depiction of Una not necessarily as a “strong female character” but as a real person, and more importantly as a woman who can roll with the punches. I'm sort of sick of books where you're supposed to be impressed that the woman who was TOTALLY CRUSHED INTO RUIN AND DESPONDENCY climbs back out, when a more universal experience for women is to be bowed but NOT broken. I'm undecided about whether it improves this book to read/have read Moby Dick. I had read MD first, but several years previous so I didn't notice all the clever, fun nods to the original text. Just make sure you EVENTUALLY read Moby Dick.