Walk on Earth a Stranger
Ratings18
Average rating3.7
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like the characters were really well fleshed out and I felt like I really knew who they were and what motivated them. This book is definitely a journey, it follows Lee (Leah) as she travels to California during the Gold Rush. You could really tell Rae Carson took the time to thoughtfully research all aspects of the journey and made it realistic.
This book has very little romance which I also appreciated. It was a focus on female empowerment and Leah taking charge in her life and not letting any man make decisions for her.
3.5 stars
the western elements and era was great to read about.
im getting hints of a potential romance ?? maybe ..
[b:Uncle Tom's Cabin|46787|Uncle Tom's Cabin|Harriet Beecher Stowe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1414349231s/46787.jpg|2478635] meets Oregon Trail the game in this gem of a novel.
It was... surprisingly good. I generally don't dabble in historical fiction because I really, really don't like history. But this didn't sound half bad and I needed a book with a title longer than three words so Bookopoly... so I read it.
The plot is compelling and fascinating. I felt like I was playing Oregon Trail (which I love) but wait! it's actually a book. The writing was beautiful, despite the fact that the internal voice in my head is unable to do a southern accent. The novel is extremely unique and had just enough magic to keep me engaged. I mean, people were also dying left and right because- Oregon trail.
I liked the characters but they weren't my favorite. I'm not sure why, I just wasn't loving them as much as I've loved other characters in other books. With that said, Leah was an interesting protagonist. She was both a tomboy and not, which was something that I really liked to see. As for the antagonists? Each of them can die in a whole. They were all scumbags.
The only thing that saddened me, and ultimately brought down this review, was the setting. Sure, everyone was reacting to the setting by, ah, dying, but I wanted more description. Having never been to the west myself, I found it difficult to truly picture the setting at some points in the novel.
Overall it was a wonderful novel and I do believe that I will be continuing on with this series.
I find stories about people traveling west so depressing I usually can't endure them, but I enjoyed this book. I still love Rae Carson's strong female characters who overcome so many challenges.
I liked Walk on Earth a Stranger very much, with one notable exception: the lazy, useless, no-good burden of a reverend. That trope was thin and tired seventy years ago, and I'm taking off a full star for it. I expected better from the author of the Girl of Fire and Thorns series, which explored the complexities of faith and belief in a beautiful, authentic way.
Still, there was much about Walk on Earth a Stranger to love. The main character yearned for freedom, and deeply enjoyed her taste of it while posing as a boy, but she didn't gleefully throw off all trappings of the feminine. Putting back on a skirt, she said, felt like being in her own skin again. She didn't want to abandon being a woman–she wanted freedom as a woman.
There were a wide variety of other well-developed female characters, with complex relationships and motivations. And Jefferson was wonderful.
This book reminded me, too, of why I loved the Western genre so much as a kid: the danger, maybe, the thrill and drama, but mostly the possibility. The wide-open sky. The idea that anything could be around the next bend or over the next ridge. Adding a touch of magic just makes it better.