A quick and compelling read, obviously. Hattie Big Sky gets off to a bit of a slow start -- too much backstory all at once, I think. The ending comes so abruptly that it doesn't quite make sense; Hattie's attitude and plans seem to change so swiftly and so completely. On the other hand, maybe that's not so surprising; Hattie is independent and adventurous enough to strike out for Montana alone at sixteen, so why shouldn't she be ready for another adventure?
I liked most of the characters Hattie meets, even some of the ones who do evil things, and I liked hearing about all of them. This book sheds a wonderful light on Montana frontier life, and on the kinds of relationships that made life possible on the frontier.
It's lovely mental exercise to compare and contrast Hattie Big Sky with Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. Both are fictionalized versions of real pioneers' lives. Their main characters have different family situations and live at least a generation apart. They face different political challenges, but the challenges of the prairie, and the ties of friendship and kinship that make it liveable, are strikingly similar. Hattie Big Sky gives us a small, richly detailed slice of one woman's life, where the Little House books (and their sequels) give us a drawn-out saga. The lives of the Little House protagonists are no less intensely lived than Hattie's, but there is more room to spread historical detail out over many books, so they are a bit gentler to read. I wish we could have a whole series about Hattie's life!
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