#book article

The writing style was not up my alley, but it gave the character life in a way were you could feel more deeply everything that went on.

Steven was the only character which did not confuse me in his introduction, aside from Beverly who was clearly his (ex) girlfriend. Roarke was harder to understand, but I got who she was just before the third chapter.

Everything up to the seventh chapter was good. Although a bit hard to understand (context, setting, and some times unnecessary cursing that made me cringe).

The 8th chapter introduces us to different characters in different settings. In this first change of POV we are given the heads-up that it had to do with Steven's next job. It's the author giving us a flashback about what Steven was suppossed to discover. Although it interrupted the flow of the main story, it was more or less interesting and gave us some information about what would become relevant later on.

However, once we reach chapter 9 we are once again thrown into "the present" and Steven regains the reins of the narrative. I, personally, hated the addition of the brother who "loves" his sister despite her being a "lesbo" as he himself refers to in this chapter. The blatant homophobia was relevant and historically accurate since the main plot was set during the late 1990s, though it still made me uncomfortable. I have to admit that if that was the author's purpose (and I believe it was) he achieved it, since here it was made clear that Roarke was also a lesbian (if you had missed the hints before).

After this actually good dinner scene of homophobia, sibling love and expectations, a sudden coming out and tortellini, we are thrown back to the world of Mountain Man (Chapter 8 continuation). During this chapter we are lost inside the new venture this character thought of and there is little to no development of an actual story line. This 10th chapter was used as an introduction. In my reduced understanding of the book so far, I could no grasp what the author tried to communicate about Mountain Man with the final sentence of this chapter: "Then he thought, Fuck, we're all gonna die."

Chapter 11 goes by without relevance as a whole, and I rescue just the last paragraph, where Steven decides to go for the job he was offered. This is a crucial point in the book since, from my perspective, everything truly starts from here.

Chapter 12 was once again narrated by Mountain Man, here during his adventure we can dive a little better on his understanding of the world and his personality.

In the next chapter we can sense a kind of goodbye party. Nothing much, a mention of Beverly and other characters that don't do much to further the plot. More like, it resolved some of the initial plot points in order to erradicate plotholes at the end.

Chapter 14 portrays beatifully the egocentric nature of Mountain Man, as he asks Ronald DeFreeze (an adventurer on his expedition) if there was any question he could clear since he assumed Ronald was writing an article about their rafting excursion. Obviously, Ronald wasn't. He was writing poems. (This would be relevant later on for me as I hypothesize that Cowboy Bob Panosus has something to do with Ronald.)

We change back to Steven for chapter 15. As readers we can already see a pattern of back and forth between narrators, though due to the shortness of the chapters this makes it a bit hard for the reader to immerse themselves into the narrative completely.

Anyway, in this chapter we get properly introduced to Miss Wilma Kirk as a character. She takes Steven to where he was staying and breifly mentions history facts about Creedmore.

The next chapter (16), Mountain Man encounters what should be the turning point on his little adventure. They make a crucial stop before continuing the rafting route on a part of the river that is considered "private property" though the Mountain Man dismisses this.

As readers, we already figured out the pattern of back and forth between this two male protagonists, right? Yes. So, in a sense, we expect the entire book to develop in that particular manner. But it doesn't.

Chapter 17 is narrated by Ticky Lettgo. Someone aforementioned in the book, however, this doesn't make it less sudden. His narration does in fact relate completely to the story of Mountain Man, and probably to some conflict that would be later brought up by Steven as he writes a biographical piece about Creedmore.

The end of this chapter separates the previous chapters from the 18th and so forth, with a poem by Cowboy Bob Panousus.

Beyond this point my understanding of the book and its intricate characters was no better than of a middle schooler reading Shakespeare. The words were there, except, I was lost within the story and the historical context that I simply did not get it.

Beyond this point I am in no position to talk about it, and my only take is that this book alienated me from it. The constant story change without more than a few pages of development between each was tiring and made me pause to make out a clear timeline more than once.

I would not reccomend this book, however, that is just my opinion.