Review: Caleb's Crossing

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


If I'd had anything else to read/listen to, I would have not finished this book. Yes, I think it's that dull. A well worn plot of a young woman living in what she feels to be a restrictive culture meeting a young man who is daring to break out of his own culture goes exactly as it always does. This book really isn't even that much about Caleb so much as Bethia, the young woman who meets him and follows his path to "enlightenment". The audio version isn't helped by a narrator who sounds like she's reading to children who might misunderstand a word if it isn't enunciated clearly and with very little emotion. Also, a narrator with only one masculine inflection and one female inflection should NOT be reading a book with this many characters.



The one plus from this is that Brooks knows her 17th century Colonial American grammar and vocabulary, and the Wampanoag tribe details are interesting.



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