This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.
This book was actually the last book that I read for my work bookclub and as you will see from future books, this one is way out of my comfort zone. I normally read non-fiction, biographies, anything art related, and Cold War spy books. So a novel that has Huck Finn vibes from Depression era America is way out of my comfort zone.
*
Once I started getting into though, I really really enjoyed it. The author does a great job of really developing all of the characters so that everyone is three dimensional. Even though it is a story about 4 kids on a journey, none of the people they meet on their way are random, fleeting characters.
*

A big part of this story takes place in a tent revival community. I always think these are very interesting and Krueger does a fantastic job of grappling with faith in a variety of ways from the kids perspective. This is not a religious book, but I still found the conversations about faith to be extremely relatable, believable, and interesting.
*
The only time Krueger almost lost me was towards the end when they start talking about Emmy’s epileptic episodes. It seemed extremely out of place for an otherwise very grounded and realistic story. However, in the last paragraph of the book, Krueger brought me back and made me really love this book. Odie is looking back and says that this was a story. There were kernels of truth, but not everything was the truth or needed to be the truth.

4/5 stars from me, which is honestly shocking