Anyone read "Flight Behaviour" by Barbara Kingsolver?

[RedNosedClone]

I've just finished it. I enjoyed it all the way through, and then WHAM, the last twenty pages or so left me feeling frustrated. The ending feels unfinished, rushed.

"The Poisonwood Bible" and "The Lacuna" left me with a similar dissatisfaction. I like her style of writing, but she seems to run out of steam at the end of her books. Am I the only one to feel this? I was expecting an epilogue in "Flight Behaviour" and was disappointed that there wasn't one.

[DuchessofMalfi]

It's on my tbr list for this year.

I don't like unsatisfactory endings, so forewarned thanks

[mmack]

Possible Spoilers**

I totally agree about the ending being rushed. Also I think throughout the book Dellarobia was becoming much more interested in the land and the animals and developing a relationship with Hester and I thought she would have been planning to use her education to make life better from them all.

[RedNosedClone]

mmack I was disappointed that Dellarobia's relationship with Hester wasn't developed more - as we saw the cracks in Hester's hardness, I expected the two women to become closer and re-evaluate their relationship.

Cub was consistently portrayed as kind but rather stupid, and then at the end of the book we don't even get to know how the big decisions about Dellarobia's new life are made and how he feels about it.

There are quite a few themes that could have been developed more. It's as though Kingsolver just felt that she'd written enough pages and should wind everything up

[mmack]

Spoilers

The book was in large part about environmentalism and farming in the face of climate change and also the lack of educational opportunities for children in the rural South. If Dellarobia had no plans to come back to the farm it was a very depressing end to the book. Maybe leaving was the most pragmatic thing to do but it made her journey seem a bit pointless. I also totally agree that we should have known how Cub (and Hester) reacted.

[hackmum]

I really liked it!

[lessonsintightropes]

I enjoyed it. I don't think it was up there with Poisonwood Bible or Prodigal Summer, but I thought it was good - and liked actually that her relationship with Hester wasn't fully explored but left a bit to the imagination.

[yesbutnobut]

OP, Barbara Kingsolver came onto mumsnet and did a chat about the book (not a live one, the questions were sent to her in advance). have a look on the Bookclub page and it was in August last year. It was v interesting. I much preferred Lacuna to Flight Behaviour - found the latter too didactic.