While the story is fascinating, I find the book to be very badly written. The author's writing style is so heavy-handed that the dialogue and narration aren't genuine at all. I agree with another review that the dialogue and inner thought process of Clara is written in a very modern style - with a few words and phrases thrown in here and there to convince us this is a woman from the 1800's speaking. Furthermore the author's handling of women's suffrage is complete overkill. We get it, Helga is a suffragette...we get it, the others in the story are not...ok they believe the woman's place is in the home, ok we get it already. She uses every opportunity to throw in sentences during the dialogues that show how a person feels about women's rights, the result being that the dialogue doesn't seem natural at all. In sum, it's not a smooth read. This book picked up where Bold Spirit by L L Hunt left off. It was a historical, fictional novel about the walk across America that Clara and Helga Estby took in 1890s. The book was largely about Clara and what she did to succeed living in a world as a single, businesswoman in this era. It added feelings, emotion and filled in some of the gaps to the story in Bold Spirit. The writing was pretty good, and you could get to know the characters but it lacked something but I am not sure what. Maybe vivid descriptions to enhance the environment and the mood........
What do You think about The Daughter's Walk (2011)?
I liked it. It touches on just how complicated families can be.
—bob
