James Campbell’s father-daughter adventure Braving It is perfect for everybody looking to escape a city and trade it for the open wild.

James and his 15-year-old daughter Aidan Campbell’s story starts one summer with James’ cousin Heimo asking them to help build a cabin in the interior of the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Aidan embraces the wild North. Together with her relatives, she hauls logs and builds a cabin, yes, but she also becomes more confident and at home so far away from civilisation.

This book is marvellous at invoking wanderlust and a sense of adventure. Together with Heimo’s Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan learns how to track, trap and hunt, and meets caribou, moose. She even returns North with her father in the winter after their initial trip, to help her relatives work the traplines and learn more about surviving in Alaska’s Wild. Together, they encounter everything such a remote place has to offer. Freezing-cold rivers, wolves, snow, grizzlies and remoteness.

Their third and final Alaskan adventure sees the father-daughter team head back North in the autumn for a rite-of-passage for the both of them. According to Eskimo tradition, some women may go through the same rites as young men if they are deemed worthy. And after Aidan had previously demonstrated how at home she is in the woods up there, they decide to undertake an ambitious trip together. Armed only with what they can carry on their backs, the two set out to cross Alaska’s Brooks Range on foot until they reach the Hulahula river, before they assemble a canoe to take them all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Along the way, father and daughter have time to bond, and have an adventure like no other.

Braving It is a striking story about a father, a daughter, and the beautiful power of the Alaskan wilderness.

My Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Title: Braving It: A father, a daughter, and an unforgettable journey into the Alaskan Wild
Author: James Campbell
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: May 10, 2016
Pages: 384
ISBN: 978-0307461247

 

Braving It by James Campbell was provided to me as an
Advance Review Copy in eBook format by
Penguin Random House’s FirstToRead. 

Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel Eileen sounded like a great and intriguing read. The 1960’s, a girl’s escape from a boring life in a small New England town, a mysterious crime – there are lots of interesting plot points going for this book, which will be released in August 2015.

Unfortunately, this does not necessarily translate to the writing. Don’t get me wrong, Eileen Dunlop is an interesting yet thoroughly unlikable character, and her insights into her life range from bland and depressive to curious and strange. But the story drags on. There is no action, and a lot of repetitions. You constantly feel like surely, next page, something is going to happen. Not so much out of suspense, but rather because you see the pages of the book running out. The interesting plot only starts at the very end, where the reader finally finds out what hideous crime Eileen was involved in.

Eileen’s story is told in the first person, by an Eileen who is fifty years older and looking back on her life. First person narrative told by a despicable character in flashback is a bold choice for any novel, let alone a debut novel. Sometimes it works, but sadly, in this case, it does not.

With its depressing story and dragging plot, I had to force myself to finish reading, and found myself ready to simply abandon the book several times. The twist is neither “Hitchcockian,” nor is the writing anything “like Shirley Jackson or early Vladimir Nabokov,” as the description claimed.

If you want a slow, dull and very sad character study, look no further. If you want a plot twist that would make Hitchcock proud – look elsewere.

My Rating: ♥

Title: Eileen
Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Publisher: Penguin Press
Release Date: August 18, 2015
Pages: 272
ISBN: 978-1594206627

 

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh was provided to me as an
Advance Review Copy in eBook form by
Penguin Random House’s FirstToRead. 

NOTE: I originally read and reviewed this book in July 2015.