All the elements of this book individually are great. The characters are strong, interesting and complex, the prose is compelling and the speculative storyline is believable, but they just don’t create a cohesive whole. The Crooked Hallelujah primarily focuses on the story of a Cherokee mother and daughter. These two women are interesting to read about, but the book occasionally breaks away from them which is distracting. I found myself wondering how everything was going to tie together when this happened. The first three-fourths of the book read like literary fiction and the last fourth like another genre completely. The last fourth was good but it just felt a little rushed and a little too out of the blue. It would have been nice if the speculative fiction aspect of the book been more prominent or been woven throughout.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

. #CrookedHallelujah #NetGalley

I enjoyed this debut book about generations of Cherokee women and their lives in Oklahoma and Texas. The multiple POVs were hard to follow at times, but I loved the complex mother/daughter relationships and strong women in this book.

Ford's debut is an immersive plunge into the lives of four generations of Cherokee women in Oklahoma and Texas. With an ongoing theme of abandonment by unreliable men in the family, Ford's mothers and daughters survive with willful tenacity and struggle through family relationship conflicts. The characters are fleshed out through a series of more-or-less chronological linked stories, with varying narrative perspectives giving us insight into each woman's life. Lula holds fast to her Christian fundamentalist faith, while her daughter Justine falls from grace with her teenage pregnancy. That baby in turn becomes the one who flies farthest from the nest, giving us a removed perspective on the family dynamics. A couple of the stories involve more peripheral characters and don't quite gel with the book as a whole, and the final section, taking place in the near future, introduces some rather bizarre apocalyptic elements apparently related to climate change and violent weather. Nevertheless, this exploration of a family and culture enchants us with its evocation of matrilineal bonds.

Crooked Hallelujah is a complex book, with a nonlinear narrative and multiple perspectives. At the heart of the novel are Justine and her daughter Reney. Justine is a half-Cherokee woman, searching for the stability that wasn’t available in her childhood. Justine’s father left when she was a child, and her mother, Lula, brought the family back to her mother’s home and the fundamentalist Holiness Church. The novel covers Justine’s life from pregnancy to old age, in an episodic fashion. Narration is provided by Justine, Lula, Reney, Granny, and other members of Justine’s extended family.

This is a difficult book, both in structure and in content. I found that I could only read the book in relatively short doses, or I would end up in a bad mood. For me, that speaks to how well Kelli Jo Ford conveys the stress and difficulties her characters are faced with, even if I don’t enjoy the outcome for myself. The narrator is not specified at the beginning of chapter breaks, and there is no consistent “tell” for when it will change or who will pick up the narration. With the exception of the first and final few episodes in the book, it can be difficult to piece together the timeline until after you have finished the entire work. While I don’t recommend this as a beach read, if you’re looking for a new author or a powerful #ownvoices story and willing to put in the effort, this is definitely one to consider.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

Even if I think it's well written I found hard to read it as sometimes it seemed disjointed.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This book is about several generations of women and their relationships with each other.

It had a promising start but somewhere along the way became repetitive. The characters were strong women, which I enjoyed. The plot is told from a multitude of perspectives and becomes difficult to follow

There were several segments of the book that didn't really fit. Out of the blue, several characters are introduced. Their stories weren't really relevant or complete. The part with Mosely and his 2 female neighbors comes to mind.

I was given an ARC. I am leaving my honest review.

Crooked Hallelujah is a novel about the relationships between mothers and daughters and about how every person has their own struggles in life and how that affects them and their relationship. You are able to get into the mind of each of these women - each character is fleshed out well. However, the structure of the book makes it difficult to follow who is speaking and what is happening. If this was made more clear, it would be a better book.

"Crooked Hallelujah" by Kelli Jo Ford is the story of three generations of Cherokee women (four, if you include Granny) who struggle to find their way in the world. Each woman must overcome her own personal challenges and obstacles, including abusive men, abandonment, poverty, wild fires and drought, and religious fanaticism.

I really wanted to love this book, especially since it is filled with strong female characters who overcome great odds. I love books about messy relationships between mothers and daughters. Unfortunately this book fell a bit flat for me. It is obvious that the author has real talent, but it was also obvious that this is a debut novel. Though I typically enjoy novels that are told from different perspectives and weave together different timelines, I sometimes had difficulty following the story and figuring out who was speaking and when. I had trouble grasping a central theme of this book, which made reading it all the more difficult.

I look forward to reading more from this author as her work matures and progresses. Thank you NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a gem. Set in rural Eastern Oklahoma and rural North Texas, from the 70s to the near future, it follows four generations of Cherokee women through belonging to (and leaving) a Pentecostal church, rape and teenage pregnancy, chronic illness and death, failed relationships and useless partners and in-laws and relationships they make work, tornadoes and fires that mark the seasonal rhythms of life, and leaving home and coming back. The characters are fully drawn and allowed to be complex and change over time.

It's hard not to write this review against the inexplicably (to me) negative reviews of the book on NetGalley, which range from racist to sort of exasperated with the number of voices in the book (each section is told from a different POV, though some are recurring). To me, the narrative is gripping, easy to read, even deceptively simple. There's clearly a lot going on just beneath the surface that challenges the reader to reflect and maybe even research: where (physically, intellectually, culturally) is Ford writing from?

Ford writes place so well. Having lived in North Texas and Central Oklahoma most of my life, I was transported back (and beyond--I mostly know the places she writes about by driving through). The sense and celebration of place, tied up with good memories and bad, is palpable; Lake Tenkiller is practically a character in the story in its own right.

In a way I'm sorry to be writing this before the more fully researched reviews and interviews with the author come out. Like I mentioned, this book has apparent subtexts that are not immediately legible; the final near-future section in particular seems worthy of essay-length treatment. White supremacy, separatism, and environmental disaster background a final reflection on leaving or staying, returning with an outsider's perspective, and the complicated ways that our families define us.

This book is brilliant and moving. It will be out June 24. Thanks @netgalley and @groveatlantic for the e-ARC.

This was such an impressive debut, and I feel it captured the complexities and varieties of mother/daughter relationships across different generations. The connection between all the women was so engaging and they felt truly real. This is a engaging, enjoyable and excellently executed book that is well worth the read.

This is a complicated book with a complicated story. What I loved was the complex mother/daughter relationships that Ford deftly characterizes. The four generations of Cherokee women: Granny: Lula, Lula: Justine, Justine: Reney unravel as you read through the book, though in an unpredictable way. You get to live in the minds of these four women, out of sequence and out of time, but yet they all display their strength and vast love for one another, despite differences and difficult circumstances.

What I struggled with most was the structure. Each chapter or section was narrated by a different person with almost no explanation of who this is or what time they are living in the headings. I got used to the uncertainty, letting myself settle in each voice as it came and not worrying too much about trying to figure out where the book was going. This is something that is hard for me, preferring a little more structure to my books, however Ford's writing was powerful and intriguing and kept me engaged no matter who the author was writing as. However, as the story progressed, we got to see some perspectives that were not one of the four women - the father of Pitch, Justine's husband, and a heart-wrenching Mose. Both seemed out of place and didn't really drive the story forward or resonated on the theme of mothers and daughters (though did have an element of fathers and children which could have been really interesting if it was expanded more). It was also a little disappointing because I really loved Mose so was sad when his beautifully tragic vignette ended on a cliffhanger only to never reappear... I also found the ending of the novel to be confusing, almost switching genres to semi science fiction or dystopian with no warning.

Overall, this was an impressive debut with some flaws. Ford roped me in and got me about these women and their relationships. Some particular moments were beautiful and will always stand out for me (the goldfish in the dirty pond for one) and I look forward to more from the author.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

"Four generations of women in one Cherokee family in Oklahoma and Texas as they battle the elements and sometimes the men in their lives."

The flow of the writing was hard for me to read, it was just too disjointed. I think in some ways it added flavor and character to the story but overall left me confused and disinterested.

2 stars

I received an ARC of Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford in exchange for an honest review. This is a story of generations of women in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. It is the story of mothers and daughters and of the men who come into their lives, often in less than positive ways.
It is also the story of faith in a fundamentalist Holiness Church where one believes in God rather than science or medicine.
overall, the story was interesting although rather disjoint. I read it over three nights. The first part was fairly straightforward and linear. Fifteen year old Justine starts to rebel from her family’s belief system and eventually becomes pregnant and give birth to her daughter Reney. This part was, in my opinion, the part of the novel where the story was clearest.
As the story progressed, the time lines and characters jumped around. The story jumped forward and then came back to the same place later on from a different angle. There was also a segment that brought in a totally unrelated character that had little or no bearing on the story and could well have been left out.
However, there is a central theme to the book and I think it can be summed up from one little quote:
Kids grow up. We either end up just like our parents or do our best to turn out nothing like them. If we are lucky, we by-God make a little better of all the things we can.
We are all the result of our upbringing in one way or another. We are all a mix of blessing and failure. We all need to find love and forgiveness in our lives. This message comes through loud and clear, despite the twists turns and tornadoes in this Crooked Hallelujah.

“Crooked Hallelujah” details the struggle of three women in one family, one generation to another. On one hand this is a novel that tells our mothers that we hear you and see you for the struggles that they may have faced, and on the other hand, it’s a novel that gives a nod to the mothers who struggled, survived, and didn’t continue the cycle.

The women in Crooked Hallelujah are strong and courageous. Mistakes are made, mistakes are mended. Human error is shown in the familial bond that is love and distance and comfort once more.

I strongly recommend this book.

I have conflicting feelings about this book. On one hand, I love reading stories about fractured family dynamics. I liked the overall vibe of the Lulu and Justine's strained mother/daughter relationship. But my main gripe was this book is trying to be one thing, and trying to be something else at the same time. There's this underlying theme of Native American culture/repression but it's never discussed in length. Just brushed upon. I found this very disappointing. Secondly, I did not like the writing style. One minute the narrative shifts to Justine, then Lulu practically in the same sentence or paragraph. I was totally confused whom was speaking. It's like the author gave up halfway through and couldn't decide which character should tell this slow-moving story. A deeply frustrating read.

Thank you, Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the digital ARC.

Release date: July 14, 2020

I requested this book primarily because I was looking for a native story, but there is not as much specifically and uniquely Native American experience in this story. Instead, it is a single mother and her daughter on the road trying to find a life for themselves and a solid novel for that storyline.

A really well written debut novel.Characters that drew me in America alive their story kept me turning the pages.This is a book I will be recommending an author I will follow#netgalley#Groveatlantic

I really liked this book, from the characters to the way it's written. I didn't find it to be disjointed or confusing; it's just not a straightforward plot-driven narrative. It's disturbing to me to see other reviews that say it's "not Indian enough" and it's "just about poor people." This book is by a Cherokee author. When BIPOC write stories that reflect their lived experience instead of exoticized white fantasies about what their culture is "supposed" to look like, they are not asking for us to tell them how they are getting it wrong. They are offering us a glimpse of their reality and asking us to listen.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Grove Press for a free uncorrected proof/e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Kelli Jo Ford's debut novel Crooked Hallelujah follows four generations of Cherokee women across four decades. The book opens with teenager Justine in 1974 and jumps both back and forth in time, including the stories of Justine's mother Lula, Lula's mother (only called "Granny" in the novel), and Justine's daughter Reney. The struggles of being both Native American and a "holy roller" in Oklahoma, Reney's life and relationships in Texas, and the troubled but also beautiful relationships between mothers and daughters are the focus.

"His baritone sounded familiar but busy, his words fireflies that flitted between them without illuminating a thing."

Justine learned early that life was made up of occasional threads of joy woven through a tapestry of unceasing trials and tribulations.
(Reviewer's note: quotes are from the uncorrected proof and may not reflect the finished copy)

I thought the writing was absolutely gorgeous, but the plot itself was sometimes hard to follow. In the midst of the women's stories is a brief interlude about a neighbor, Mose, and the death of his mother. This incongruous segue interrupted the flow of the story and I am not sure it added anything to the whole. I was also not a fan of the ending of the book, but I don't want to give away any spoilers. So I will end this review with a recommendation to read this book, if not for the plot, for Ms. Ford's beautiful way with words.

Crooked Hallelujah is due to be published on July 14, 2020.

It is rare when I get to the end of the book and I still don't know how I feel about it. Crooked Hallelujah is like that. I have finished the last page, but the story seems to continue on without me. I know that sounds odd.

It is a story as old as time. The choices of the mother and the effects on the daughter. Crooked Hallelujah follows four generations of women. All trying to find something. Stability. Meaning. Happiness. It seems each generation is mirroring the one before. There are some changes, but not enough.

I found myself hoping for a happy ending, but I knew I was not going to get the fairy tale ending like I would prefer. I would get an ending with some happiness, some sadness, and some understanding.