The Boatman's Daughter

*2.5 stars

Little underwhelmed. This was another one where at the beginning, I really thought I’d love it. The author’s descriptive writing easily creeped me out. The unique lore that was brought into it had me intrigued. But by the 3/4 point, it felt like a lot of that was abandoned. I still don’t understand the real motive of almost anything any of the antagonists did. The leshii seemed to just be a spooky plot device. Much of the horror came from what two stupid, selfish men inflicted on those around them. It was ok, but not what I was really hoping for at the beginning.

The Boatman's Daughter revolves around an interconnected group of people living near the Arkansas bayou and their secrets, lies, revenge, and so on. It's a bayou soap opera with elements of the supernatural.

Davidson's writing style strikes me as self-consciously stylized. He's trying so hard to create an atmosphere but the metaphors and complicated sentence structure get in the way of the storytelling.

He puts effort into the tone but neglects to impart his characters with engaging personalities.

Miranda, the title character, is “brave and strong”, typical of how young women characters are written these days, without any traits that might make them vulnerable or human. Zero sense of humor. Her allies have uncommon physical traits but no charisma. No depth for to the villains either–just brooding, abusing, raping, and murdering. The writer doesn't take any risks on this front.

As for the horror or supernatural aspects, the demons/psychic phenomenon seemed like an afterthought. If you removed it or made it far more subtle, it would not have affected the story.

I love gothic and creepy stories but I couldn't get involved in this. All the grittiness and underdogs to root for, yet the final effect was lifeless.

I'm a little late logging this one because....pandemic. Also, I literally misplaced this book. Finally, I found it in a bag of shoes (!) and was then able to finish it. My thoughts: There was a show on a while ago called Hap and Leonard (it's also a book series by [b:Mucho Mojo 102119 Mucho Mojo (Hap and Leonard, #2) Joe R. Lansdale https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1171484469l/102119.SY75.jpg 1457512]. We have: a time before cellphones, crime, swamps, good-hearted people of the land, crazy preachers, and magic. The Boatman's Daughter could have been an episode of that show. So, if you enjoyed that, you will love this. There were times when I felt that Miranda Crabtree rivaled only Mattie Ross in the level of grit, but sometimes her one-liners and complete badassery went a little over the top and she ends up being more like the red-haired guy from CSI: Miami who whipped off his sunglasses to deliver cringe-worthy one-liners every episode. I was willing to forgive the cheese because Davidson also gives us Baba Yaga. No, for real. Sadly, her back story gets no play, but she's pretty badass as well. And a little gross. In the end, considering the circumstances of the world right now, and the fact that I put it down for a large chunk of time, was able to retain the characters and plot and had no problem picking it up again, I have to go 4 stars on this one. It loses a star because it should have been about 150 pages shorter. There are a great many scenes of the same scene, but now from a different character's POV. It got a little old. On a horror scale, it's about a low-medium. The setting is the scariest thing about the entire novel, except for the evil human characters.