This book was like a slow burn. It was very depressing, sad and hard to read. It took me a long time to get through this book, but in the end it was a good read. The last 15% really picked up and made the book a 4 star read. It took place during the Great Depression and the main characters were children living at a school for orphans. The powerlessness of the children was heavy and I found myself having to set the book down. The ending was good and I was happy that the author put an epilogue. Recommended for anyone who likes realistic fiction set in the past.

This book follows the four children, the Vagabonds, on a journey down the Mississippi River towards destinations that each one is searching for. These children are brought closer together and also pulled apart as they meet all sorts of characters along the way. The story moves through quickly through this summer of their lives and we see it all from the point of view of the storyteller, Odie. I absolutely loved these characters. I felt like Krueger did a fantastic job of developing them each with a unique personality, where each one was important to the team as a whole. Even the supporting characters felt as if they carried so much weight and that the story depended on them. I really enjoyed all the twists and turns that happened and how the story never ceased to hold my attention. The way Krueger ties in the history of the great depression and the society and turmoil that people were living in was done in such an elegant way. I felt like I was able to get into the society that was laid before me and be a vagabond on this journey too.
I am so glad that I got the chance to read this new novel and will definitely be looking for more from William Kent Krueger in the future.

I loved the novel The Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. This is a story of four orphans and their somewhat unconventional journey. These orphans are escaping a horrible school that repeatedly tortures the students. The loyalty these orphans show each other is incredible! These orphans even take a willing young girl called Emmy with them because she has recently become an orphan and they do not want her sent to this horrendous school. There are themes of redemption, religion, and family and its many forms, and Indian history to name just a few. I thought about these characters long after I had finished the novel. I’m sure you will enjoy it as well.

I chose this based on previews and loved it! Everyone is comparing it To Where The Crawdads Sing and it is a right and just comparison. A masterpiece. I don't want to give anything away but will tell you to read this book as it will be read for years to come!

This was a beautifully written story about friendship and family. The characters were so well developed and you really felt like you knew them.

I was a little skeptical of this book. 450 pages and historical fiction. I always like my books under 400 pages. I’m trying to be more open minded about the page number. Also, the hype made me skeptical. But I really enjoyed this one! I was always looking forward to reading it to find out what was going to happen. I do think it dragged a little at times but it was all brought together really nicely at the end. The ending really bumped up the rating for me. I love Odie and his determination. You can’t help but root for these 4 the whole story. I love the family they made despite not being all blood related and how they managed to look past all the tragic events that happened to them. There were some twists at the end I didn’t exactly see coming. I can’t imagine being an orphan and living under the circumstances they did at the Lincoln school or trying to survive on their own. While this is heartbreaking at times it really was a nice story. I recommend this one for anyone a fan of historical fiction or rooting for the good guys!

What an amazing book! An amazing adventure of four orphans who leave a terrible place to try to find their spot in this world, a home. Very rich in character development and well written. Don't miss this one! I enjoyed it very much! One of the best books I've read this year!
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley. Many thanks, Netgalley!
Atria Books 📚📚 you Rock!
All opinions are my own.

Oh how I enjoy a good tale by William Kent Krueger, one of my favorite and most recommended authors! If you want to really get lost in a story, read this book or his Ordinary Grace. And I love the fact that both books are coming of age stories told from the adult view looking back on memories of childhood. This one was a little slow at the start for me but I was easily distracted. The last part of the book though just wrapped everything up in a tidy bow, perfectly. I highly recommend this one for anyone who loves coming of age stories of historical fiction.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, four orphans, ages 16 downwards, create their own family and escape the abusive Lincoln School for Indians in Minnesota, heading to St.Louis in a canoe. Murder, mayhem, and magic ensue. Nurturing hope, pursued by evil throughout their entire journey, they are helped and harmed in turn by the other people they encounter. On the rivers and in the towns they meet gamblers and thieves, whores and liars, faith healers and phantoms—both good and bad among them, the flotsam and jetsam of humans caught up in a time of huge upheaval.

This novel is a fantastic story of the real America, still on hand, with its hustlers and innocents trampled. Krueger also highlights the spiritual life of youth in this coming of age story: their sense of justice and mercy, their judgements of self and others, their seemingly clear vision of the hypocrisy of adults, their sense of wonder and gratitude.

This Tender Land is an adventurous and tender book. Though his villains have progressed to a place beyond redemption in this life, hurting children for their own ends, Krueger still leaves us with compassion for those who make bad choices in life and hope for those in horrific circumstances.

As I read, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn immediately came to mind, and indeed in the afterward the author pays homage to Twain. The rascal Huck was always more adult than Tom Sawyer—he had to be—and the technique of telling the story from the perspective of a main character recalling (and probably embellishing) the past works really well here. William Kent Krueger is a great writer, but like his narrator, he’s a wonderful storyteller, moving things along while making us care—and that’s harder.

There’s something for everyone in this book: drama, humor, and heart—with a touch of magic and mystery as well. It would make a fantastic read-aloud to share, an engaging book club book. It really is one for the ages, I hope to become a classic—one of the best books of the year. (Thanks to Atria and Netgalley for the digital review copy.)

This Tender Land

Brother Kreuger has hit it out of the ballpark (Mose at bat??) again! Huckleberry Finn, The Goonies, Holes and O, Brother Where Art Thou all rolled together might have made something pretty darn close to this starlit book! Such a great read, hitting all the high notes for me: outrage, despair, loss, joy, sorrow, regret, tension, adventure, companionship, “family”, identity and compassion. Set in the 30’s, a time period of particular interest to me, and a state I’ve never been, I soaked up this tale, wide-eyed and insatiable. It’s new favorite for me.

I am fascinated with the dance this author does on that crazy ledge of divine intervention: blessing or curse? That very question hangs over my life in its entirety – a thick, familiar mist. On one side there is all that falls on the side of heaven’s direct gift/answer/word, and on the other there is that nasty bite, heavenly rebuke, proved by another beloved person/place/thing zapped away! Either Amazed or Bereft we process, as these four children (ish) do: am I deserving? am I in deeper debt? was it my fault? Did I have too much faith? Not enough? How many times have I heard it bitterly said, “Don’t expect anything. Then you won’t be disappointed.” Albert’s question to Odie: What does a shepherd do, Odie? What do they do?? It took my breath away. . . .for a long time. So many good thoughts sprang out of my reading of this book. One. At. A. Time.

I love the characters, and love the love the author has for his story, telling it with all the care and attention of a new lover. Even his endnote mentions that attention, sitting on the very rock where . . .oh. Yeah. No spoilers.

Fine. 5k stars from me. (OK. I've dropped a few breadcrumbs. . . . .)

A sincere thanks to William Kent Krueger, Atria Books and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set in Minnesota during the summer of 1932, this beautifully written story is about four orphans on a life-changing journey.
They escape from the Lincoln School, a hellish place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. They flee in a canoe heading for the Mighty Mississippi.
The children journey into the unknown and cross paths with a variety of wonderfully created characters, searching for a place to call their own.
This story embraces hardship and cruelty, humanity and love, murder and redemption. Most of all, it is about hope.
I highly recommend this novel which is one of my favorites of 2019.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

This Tender Land by William Kent Drueger is a moving tale of friendship, hope, overcoming hardship, and just a touch of mysticism. If The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Inland had a baby, it would be this book. Four orphans escape an orphanage in Minnesota where they are beaten and mistreated and set out on a hopeful, and life-changing journey along the rivers that connect to the Mississippi, on their way to St Louis.

The book takes place during the Great Depression and paints such a vivid picture of life in those times that you’ll swear you saw it with your own eyes. My Grandmother would have been the exact same age as our narrator Odie O’Banion in 1932 and reading this book prompted me to do more research about what life would have been like in rural America then.

This is a wonderful book, although heartbreaking at times, and I definitely recommend it. I also listened to the audiobook and it was narrated beautifully by Scott Brick. Even when I wasn’t listening to it, I found myself fondly thinking about the characters and wondering what would happen next.

I love a book that I want to share with others and will want on my shelves for years to come. This tender book is all that and more. I agree with all the classic comparisons to Huckleberry Finn, perhaps The Grapes of Wrath and a bit of Wizard of Oz thrown in. I loved the writing, characters and descriptions of our country in the throws of the Great Depression. I almost wanted to have read the author notes before the book to really appreciate all that he included to make it so absorbing. Krueger is amazing. The ending seemed a bit rushed which is a problem I have with most books I read. Almost too many storylines intertwining at the end for me with one aspect being too far fetched but it was still brilliant. Here’s hoping this book can sweep Crawdads from the best seller list because this book has important messages about what it means to be family and how important home should be to all of us.

Thank you for the opportunity to review. It was worth the wait after Ordinary Grace another classically great novel.

4.5 stars

I didn't enjoy this as much as Ordinary Grace, and my five stars come with a disclaimer. This wasn't what I thought it would be, but it was in every way a fantastic read. I've had this book since May? But I chose to wait and wait and wait and then as I got closer to the publishing date I though oh heck I'll just wait until the library book comes in so I can read the hard copy. I think that worked against me. I had so many outside voices in my head that I was left feeling disappointed. I don't really know why though. So let's discuss...

I LOVE WKK. I LOVE Ordinary Grace. I also really, really like this book. It's themes of forgiveness, sacrifice, family, despair and determination make this most certainly a best book of the year. For some reason though, something just fell short for me and I'm still trying to puzzle it out. With 100 pages left, I started to feel impatient. I don't know if its that I had a mountain of other books I needed to read (library holds/arcs galore) so I was pushing myself to rush it a little faster? I certainly wasn't expecting all this action because this is not the story for that. I somehow felt sort of disconnected in a way at certain points and I don't know why. It's definitely my issue, not the book. It just felt like we were repeating the same circumstances over and over...but it was different enough where I could understand why WKK included that all in there. Would I have changed anything? I really don't think so. Each and every character in this book serves a purpose. (And there are some truly wonderful ones in these pages.) So that is how I felt while reading it. Then I finished it, and I found myself missing it and was sad I couldn't go back to it. Makes so much sense, right?

I know for sure that this is a timeless read. If any future school administrator has a brain, this will most certainly be on a summer reading list in my daughter's future and it absolutely should be. WKK's writing carries such wonderful lessons, but it is done in such an unassuming way. It's so...Midwest. That's all I could think of when I was reading it. It's the Pete Buttigieg of books ladies and gentlemen. (Hopefully, this part of my review ages well and five years from now we won't all scratch our heads wondering who I'm even talking about).

Anyway, I'm not going to bother with a summary because this book is so well revered already it doesn't need one. I just hope you do yourself a favor and read it. Once you read it, remember it. When you go about your life, put the lessons you learned from it into practice. I know I'm going to try.

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books and William Kent Krueger for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

Review Date: 9/23/19
Publication Date: 09/03/2019

Thank you Atria Books and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a wonderful story of 4 orphans with distinctly different personalities who escape an Indian school and make their way down river to St. Louis. Along the way, these four take care of each other while encountering dangerous situations as well as a few good people who help them.

This story reminded me of when I read Huckleberry Finn as a child. Admittedly, I enjoyed this so much more. I couldn’t predict this ending, but it was wonderfully crafted. I enjoyed the author’s note at the very end and appreciated his research and creativity in giving his readers a beautifully written tale.

An eye-opening look at a time of great strife: the Great Depression. The characters and setting are real standouts. Highly recommended read.

This Tender Land is a story of forging a family when original family has been lost; of finding home in a lonely, often unwelcoming world; but perhaps most importantly it is a story of storytelling itself. Set in 1932, depression-era mid-west, the story begins at an Indian School in Minnesota where two white orphans, Arthur and Odie, their Indian friend Mose, and a local little girl, Emmy, are forced to flee from the school. They take to the river, aiming to eventually find their way to the Mississippi River and their hoped-for goal, St. Louis.

Their travels on the rivers brings them, and we readers, in touch with the largely desperate world around them. They avoid contact with others where possible but can’t help but see the want around them, even as they are hungry, themselves. They experience the good and bad in people, sometimes intense episodes of each. Odie is our narrator, and the storyteller of the novel. Initially I had a little difficulty with this narrator’s apparent omniscience, but over time, and definitely by the end, this was resolved.

This is my first experience reading Krueger and I am glad we have finally met. This is another recommended book.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Let me start this review by saying that Historical Fiction is almost the last genre I ever choose to pick up. That being said, the way that William Kent Krueger writes Historical Fiction will have me picking up every single book that he writes. I learned more reading Ordinary Grace and now This Tender Land than I ever did in any American History class that I ever took.

This Tender Land is set in 1932 during the time of The Great Depression. The story follows 13 year old (well almost) Odie, his brother Albert, his Sioux friend Mose, and young Emmy as they escape from the Lincoln Indian Training School and strike out on an adventure to save, and find, themselves. This novel includes heartbreaking history of what it was like for the Sioux people during this time period, the shanty towns knowns as "Hoovervilles," and just how harrowing The Great Depression was on people of all races and statuses.

Krueger also has an incredible knack for questioning faith and what we should expect of our "God." I personally identify as more spiritual than religious myself but Krueger consistently packs a punch that makes me question my own beliefs.

His writing is beautiful and interesting and thoughtful and you will not be disappointed in the story telling.

-DESCRIPTION-
An epic story that spans the United States of two brothers, a friend, and a little girl. All attempting to find their true hearts desire during The Great Depression.

-THOUGHTS-
1. This book is a wonderful mark of historical fiction and life during The Great Depression. The desperation during that time and the scum that took advantage.
2. Krueger's writing is beautiful and his descriptions are spot on. You will feel as though you are truly on this journey with these four vagabonds.
3. Although a lengthy book...don't let that stop you. It's a book about what family is. Love. And how that fierce protectiveness can drive, even the youngest person.

-RATING-
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
I highly recommend this book.

-SIMILAR RECOMMENDED READS-
The Great Alone
Rust & Stardust
Before We Were Yours

Another absolutely amazing story by Mr. Krueger! This man has an incredible gift of storytelling. I look forward to the next story by him - I will be the first in line once again. (If you haven't read Ordinary Grace I highly, highly recommend that one too.)