The Bones of Paradise

She stooped to pick a wild pink rose, avoiding the tiny spines that slivered like unseen glass hairs onto one's fingers. There was little scent, but the creamy softness of the petals like the insides of a dog's ear more than made up for it. She placed one on her tongue, and imagined she could taste the hills, the bittersweet tang of life.

This book started beautiful. I was completely mesmerized by the gorgeous descriptions of the prairies of Western Nebraska and Western South Dakota and the compassionate retellings of the sufferings of the Lakota Sioux. This book starts with a mystery that is one of the central conflicts of the story. The characters were complex and sketched with such subtlety and mystery that I was excited at the prospect of slowly unraveling their individual histories which led them to each moment.

She blew in like a hard west wind, the kind that dropped a man's bones to zero, froze his hair to his skull, and clogged his eyes with ice.

nuance and sensitivity

The ending itself was actually the biggest let down for me.

out

I feel that this could have been an incredible Western but which lost its way at the end.