Loved this book. Alaska, fishing and great characters. ( )

Mixed feelings about this one....I felt the blurb was misleading, I was expecting a light read about a young woman finding herself, resolving issues while in Alaska, but it really was a book about working in the fisheries/fishing industry. The descriptions went on and on and yet they were hard to visualize.
The author chose to write a female as the main character, yet it felt like a teenage boy was speaking. The reactions, emotions, speech, it all felt off to me. I found her unformed and unlikeable. Her fascination with an old boat did not ring true to me. There were too many secondary characters, many more than were necessary, and it felt like the author was just trying to tell us about all of the different people he himself had met. Unfortunately few of the characters were well developed, and they dropped in and out of the story so often that I kept getting them confused. The storyline about the Native man especially annoyed me, it seemed like he had a very interesting backstory but it was never explored, and his behavior seemed random and unlikely. Again it felt like the authored met someone like him - briefly- and tried to expend an encounter into a relationship.
My favorite parts were about the dog! ( )

Could not get into this book at all and ultimately abandoned it. Tara felt like a cliche to me and the dialogue was awfully stilted to my ear. Maybe people more interested in the Alaskan fishing industry will have better luck with it.

Novel

This debut novel has been getting all sorts of accolades, even a recommendation by Oprah. I became interested because of the setting in an Alaskan fishing village and because I enjoy stories of strong women. 18-year-old Tara Marconi is grief-stricken over her mother's death so she decides to leave Philadelphia for Alaska to find herself again. As she learns from a new friend up north, Alaska is the place to come to tumble around in the Alaskan Laundry, get clean, and become renewed.

Tara soon learns that it isn't as simple as it sounds. She has a job lined up by her cousin who used to work in a fish hatchery and processing center. Yuck. I almost had to hold my nose while I was reading due to the way the author made the smells come alive. He must have experience working in the fishing industry because that part of it was well described and rang true. Tara was the one I had a little trouble believing in. For such a young woman, she seemed too tough and quick to use her boxing skills against hard-working fishermen who annoyed her. Luckily, they were mostly drunk or so taken by surprise that she didn't suffer too much damage in return. It made for a good story as did the bear encounter on her first walk into the woods, but I was skeptical about some of her scrapes and misadventures.

Although I had trouble relating to the edgy protagonist, I enjoyed many of the side characters. The adoption of the aging wolf/dog Keta was a welcome and natural turn of events. He softened Tara's rough exterior and made her more likable. Tara's travails made for an adventure-filled book. I hope the author writes more books about Alaska. His knowledge of the flora and fauna of the land and some of its colorful characters made this a worthwhile read in the end. ( )