Trisha D. (lectio) reviewed on 10/28/2008 + 88 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 11

I liked just about everything about this book beginning with the setting - the farms, mountains and remote wilderness areas of southern Appalachia in the summertime. In this beautifully written novel Barbara Kingsolver writes with fascinating detail about the lushness of the natural world, providing us with one amazing fact after another about how perfectly balanced nature is in terms of the food chain, prey and predator, and the way nature keeps reproducing itself from season to season, year after year unless we human beings interfere in the process. Set against this backdrop, Prodigal Summer tells the stories of three intriguing protaganists - each of them outsiders in one way or another, who are connected to each other in different ways. Their stories unfold along side each other under three separate chapter headings (Predators, Moth Love,and Old Chestuts) that keep reappearing throughout the novel as we gradually become aware of how their lives are connected. Ultimately, this is a novel about the way all things are connected to one another and how it is that for humans love - in it's many forms - is the strongest connection of all.

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