Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To redress the balance!, 19 April 2008
I would be sad if the one star and the one very negative review on display here were to put anyone off reading this excellent book.
The previous reviewer has given us a very detailed account of the plot.
This book is has far more to offer than plot. Sara Paretsky is an immensely talented writer who gives all her characters life and motivation and provokes her readers to think beyond the book.
In Bleeding Kansas she deals with big themes; smalltown America's attitude war in Iraq, fundamentalist Christianity,grief,sexuality and witchcraft to mention a few. The dramas are all acted out on the limited stage of a farming community in rural Kansas and it is with consummate skill that Paretsky draws all the threads together to demonstrate how global issues affect ordinary people. As in the VI Warshawski books, she has you rooting for the good guys and hating the bad ones. There are some great set piece scenes combining high comedy and tragedy. I couldn't put it down and urge you to read it in the hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
been there, 22 April 2008
While it is hard keeping the characters straight initially, eventually they become more detailed and recognizable. It's worth the effort to get to that point as this book, while somewhat exaggerated, shows the polarity that has grown up in swaths of rural America. It also shows both the effort and rewards of working on a farm.
Paretsky is very liberal for an American, as shown in her more famous detective novels, but her bias shows less in this novel as the majority of the characters are portrayed sympathetically, no matter what their philosophy. The exceptions are the fundamentalists, and as someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, she isn't too far off the mark with them either.
I would recommend this book highly, mainly because of the narrative flow, a property all too rare in modern novels.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Ponderous Story Pitting Exaggerated Types Against One Another, 24 Jan 2008
Bleeding Kansas is a NOT a V.I. Warshawski novel. It is also NOT a mystery.
Having dealt with what the book is not, let me address what it is:
Sara Paretsky has illuminated small town living in a farm community where three sets of neighbors represent different values and attitudes (not to mention different religious beliefs). In telling her story, she draws on a context of three conflicts that have occurred among the people of Kansas (Civil War fights between pro- and anti-slavery factions with the heavy violence being done by the pro-slavery people, the Vietnam era split between pro- and anti-war people, and the current split between religious fundamentalists and those with a more secular view).
The Schapen and Grellier families have been neighbors and poles of opposition for some time in the Kaw River Valley. A lot of what each family does is intended to be competitive with the other family. There used to be a third farm family, the Fremantles. The latest generation of Fremantles has moved away from the Fremantle home and land . . . until a remote relative, Gina Haring who is recently divorced and wants to find herself, moves into the house. The Christian fundamentalist Schapens are outraged by the lesbian, Wiccan Haring. The church-going but pro-science Grelliers are divided over Haring and what she adds to the community. The tension among the homes is increased when the Schapens produce a totally red calf which Jewish fundamentalists want to use to help re-establish the ancient temple in Jerusalem. As the residents interact more than is their custom, other events are set in motion that have unexpected consequences.
Bleeding Kansas is a very hard book to get into. You have lots of names (past and current) thrown at you in the space of a few pages. It's also hard to get an initial handle on what kind of book this is.
If you can stick it out until around page 125, the narrative begins to take off in a recognizable direction. From there, I think you'll be able to follow the story and characters fairly easily as more time is spent with each character and the number of characters mentioned at one time drops.
The plotting of the story leaves a lot to be desired. There are long stretches where not enough happens. And where there is action, it's often hard to understand what is being described.
The characters are quite exaggerated away from what you might expect of a person living today with just a few exceptions. As a result, I found myself thinking of the characters as characters that I was reading about rather than identifying with one or more of them and living inside the story.
Much of the plot development is pretty predictable once you understand the premise. I found it hard to motivate myself to finish the book.
My advice is that unless you want to read everything that Sara Paretsky writes, skip this book. My advice to Ms. Paretsky is to stick to her excellent V.I. Warshawski series.
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