A sad and beautiful story about a daughter and her father. We journey with this small family through mental health issues, isolation, fear, love, heart break and everything in between. An intense read that had me gripped from the start. What will become of him? What about her? You'll want to read it to find out.

** I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

By now, you may have noticed that I do not waffle on reviews. A good portion of the way through a book my opinion has been formed and I’m already writing mentally what I’m going to say in a review.

However, as I contemplate Legends of the North Cascades, I am at a loss. First off, it’s well written, extremely well written, and engaging. Jonathan Evison has created characters that you care about and try to understand. They are multi-dimensional.

But there’s a viscerally, bloody, gory scene (enough adjectives?) that unhinged me midway through that I couldn’t get beyond. This is probably not a book for bleeding heart vegetarians/vegans or people who find it extremely difficult to read about women being violated.

The novel is undoubtedly complex. We are presented with Dave Cartwright, a great high school football player, who had aspirations for college that never went to fruition because he was too small and the one opportunity he had went up in smoke. He enlisted, went to war in the Middle East, and returned, not the same. His relationship with his high school sweetheart dissolves into arguments. When she leaves in a huff, she gets into a fatal accident. Left to take care of Bella, their daughter, and completely disillusioned about the world around him in which a self-proclaimed orange demi-god rules, Dave chooses a cave in the Cascades as his future home.

While I was engaged by most chapters of Dave and Bella, I started skimming over the chapters involving the ancient natives after realizing I just couldn’t read about their suffering and the things they needed to do to survive. All the bloody meat and blood dripping over one’s lips, not my thing, nor the violations. Granted, I should just have accepted that this novel was not for me, but. BUT. I am not one to easily give up and I do believe that Dave and Bella’s story, which is the heart of the novel, is important.

There are so many people who believe that going off the grid to live will be their salvation and I think that this novel speaks to them. Nature is unrepentant. She doesn’t care about your politics or your past. She just exists and she can ruin you in one quick moment. And if you’re lucky, you have a Bella existing in that moment to save you.

Bella is the heroine at eight and most interesting character in this novel. She is a conduit for the past and a character far beyond her present. She is intelligent and self-aware beyond her years. I wonder what she will become?

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the premise and was incredibly excited to read this story. I am always drawn to themes of nature, connection, and shared human experiences. Unfortunately, the execution fell short. The writing felt cold and emotionless, especially considering the events which led up to Dave going off the grid. The story felt quite disjointed between the time jumps within Dave's storyline and the flashbacks. The two perspectives did not connect very well. Further, I felt uncomfortable with the portrayals of Indigenous people in the book. Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin for the opportunity to provide feedback on this book.

What I liked about this book:
🥾 PNW Author
🥾 Flashback Perspective
🥾Native Washington History
🥾Full of Empathy and Nature

The author did a fantastic job intertwining N A T U R E with love and loss. I’m always down to read a book that connects nature with belonging.

"You're a link in the chain, but it's more than a chain. It's like a whole gigantic fabric. A huge quilt. And God, God's like the needle. God sews it all together. God connects us. It's a crazy a** quilt, and every square is different, see, but God connects us."

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I love a good wilderness survival story but Legends of the North Cascades is so much more than that. Dave is a man with a Purple Heart and the PTSD to go with it. He struggles with regular life and integrating into society after his three tours in Iraq, the monotony of life and living by rules that he doesn't agree with lead him to make an unpopular choice. Despite everyone's objections he decides to take himself and his 7 year old daughter off the grid. 

Now, this isn’t Into the Wild, Dave and Bella settle in a cave in the mountains but are within a day's walk of town and are relying on some modern conveniences like library books. So they’re “selectively” off the grid, but their struggle is not just the battle of outdoor life but with their own emotions. Living with grief and anxiety is not easy and the devotion of these two to protect and challenge one another is both inspiring and hard to read at times. We see their extended family members trying desperately to intervene and their continued fight to live the way they want to. That need is less fueled by the desire to live off the land but rather fueled by their underlying fears and anxieties. We see the depths of isolation and how it can hinder rather than help healing. Can they find a way to overcome and heal and integrate back into society?

My favorite part of the novel was a parallel story about ancient peoples who lived on the same land who were also balancing how to survive and also how to integrate with others of their kind. Bella is experiencing this story as a sort of mechanism for coping with her own life. That story is raw and filled with tragedy and a need for connection with the Great Provider.

This is a great introspective read but delves into some heavy topics. As someone who struggles with some of the same issues, I found the book both resonated with me and triggered me a little so I had to take it slow but I appreciated the journey. Thanks to Algonquin Books for a copy of this novel. All opinions above are my own.

My Review:⭐️⭐⭐.5/ 5 stars

Dave Cartwright, a former (3 tours) marine, father of a 7 year old precocious daughter, Bella, returned to Vigilante Falls, WA to find himself very unconnected to his surroundings. Then his wife tragically dies, leaving him a single father, with a formidable amount of debt and societal expectations. He decides to escape to the woods of the North Cascades and live in the cave with his daughter. The cave would contain all their basic needs like food, water, shelter, and they would make stops into town when needed for replenishment. The story comes from multiple POVs - including Dave’s brother, the sheriff, and other town locals and their perception of “Cave Dave.” It was sad to read about his failing mental health, and dealing with PTSD, without much support. The touching part of the story is the relationship between Dave and his daughter. There are many chapters that are devoted to a fictional ice-age area mother/son who were cast out of their clan and left to fend for themselves, also in a cave. There were some trigger warnings of violence/rape, which seems more alarming when it is all coming from Bella’s imagination. Although there were parts of the story I thoroughly enjoyed, Bella’s dream story could have easily been excluded and it would still have been a very strong story.

Thank you to Algonquin books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. US Pub Date: June 8, 2021!

Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an advanced review copy of this book.

This is definitely going to be a 5-star read for me! I absolutely love this book. I was immediately drawn into Dave and Bella's lives by Jonathan Evison's evocative, emotional writing. I can feel Dave's growing anger and PTSD, and Bella's grief and confusion, as if they were real people I know. I also found the story of S'tka and her infant son very compelling and I was on pins and needles waiting to read of their survival. While this is Jonathan Evison's sixth novel, it is the first book of his that I've read--but it won't be the last!

This book is not what I expected but it was still pretty good. I was expecting more of a "survival" story, like being thrown in the wilderness by accident, rather than going out in the elements on purpose and sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and letting your beard grow. I found it a bit too unrealistic but the story was enough to keep my attention and I read most of it in a day. Thanks, Netgalley, for my arc.

I am going to DNF at 100 pages.

Legends of the North Cascades comes across as very hyper masculine. Dave is a recently single Dad, ex small town football star, and recently retired from the marines. Reading about his football greatness and his tours in Iraq are not topics that I find interesting. However, depending on the storyline and the rest of the book, I can still get invested.

The aspect of the book that made me decide not to finish is that Dave has decided to take his 7 year old daughter, Bella, and go live in the wilderness. Dave finds a cave in the mountains and takes his daughter and their cat to live. While living in the wilderness, Bella starts having visions of an indigenous woman and her life on the glaciers in the North Cascade mountains. At this point I researched the author to see if he is an indigenous person. The author seems to be from California and moved to Washington State as a child. I am not sure if the visions that Bella is having is based upon an actual Native American folktale or if he made it up, either way it is cultural appropriation.

As a person who grew up in the North Cascades region of Washington State, I was very excited about this book. The small town the author wrote about could have been my small town. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong "legend" to write about. Bigfoot probably would have been better.

This is a poignant and at times surprising story of a deeply troubled father- Dave- who takes his young daughter Bella (and their cat) to live in a cave after the death of his wife. Dave's raging PTSD has made it next to impossible for him to live in his small town. Bella is entranced at first, especially after their cat gives birth, but soon realizes that this isn't the best life. Their story is entwined with that of a mother and son during the Ice Age, who experience many of the same things Dave and Bella do. It's an unusual combination which doesn't always work and you might like one narrative more than the other. There are also periodic (and sometimes jarring) contributions by those who know Dave. What happens when you take your kid to live in cave? Well, the authorities do care but...Bella is very much the star here even though this is very much Dave's story. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. A very good read.

Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison is a book about survival and grief. It's a book that delves into those age-old themes of "man vs. self" and "man vs. nature."

Some of the writing was a bit challenging for me to connect with, but I imagine that many will appreciate this story.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with this book.

All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 9/10

Review:
“Of all the perils, and pitfalls you’ve foisted upon us, Great Provider, none is equal to the thoughtless cruelty of man. For only man among all the beasts worked so hard to cultivate the worst of his nature.”

It’s Blog Tour Day for Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison and I am thrilled to share this book with everyone. Full honesty; I have had some stuff in my personal life lately that has made it hard for me to read everything I’ve been wanting to read or have committed to. That, coupled with Michigan finally hitting the summer stride and reading just hasn’t been happening. BUT, as soon as I sat down with this book and was able to get myself in the reading mode, I devoured it in one sitting and just a few hours. It’s so completely worth the binge.

Legends of the North Cascades straddles multiple timelines. We focus on Dave, a man reeling from PTSD from being an American military man. To add insult to injury, his wife dies and he’s left to raise his daughter in a world he doesn’t really agree with. He decides to pack up Bella to live in the remote wilderness of the North Cascades. They bunker down in a cave and are happy for a time. The isolation is freeing but also crippling on Dave’s already fragile mental state, though he doesn’t realize this. Dave is one of those people who is extremely intelligent and talented, but has been harmed by society’s handling of veterans. He also has a jaded outlook on the military and their mission. He’s a gentle man who was forced to do brutal, life-altering things, only to come home and be burdened by debt and the constricts of a “civilized” society. He wants to feel human again, down to the most simple meaning of it. He wants to live off the land quietly and honestly, away from prying eyes and gossiping cruelty.

“‘You can’t own a person,’ she said.
‘What do you think a slave is?’ he said.
‘There’s no more slaves,’ she said. ‘Miss Martine told us they stopped slavery a long time ago. In the eighteen-hundreds.’
‘Of a certain kind,’ he said. ‘But there’s different ways of enslaving people.’
‘Like how?’
‘Well, like rules that don’t make sense, rules that say a person can’t live where a person wants. There’re laws that aren’t fair, laws that say certain people can’t do certain things. And debt, debt is a kind of slavery; its’ kind of like a chain that keeps people tied to a life they can’t afford.'”

We are able to making striking comparisons of Dave and Bella’s journey to the backdrop story told of a mother and son from the Ice Age. The cave people from the Ice Age can’t rely on going into their local town for supplies or help when injured or looking for food and their climate is much harsher than what Dave and Bella experience, but both sets have the same sense of isolation that can drive a person to desperation. They both experience what it is like to be ostracized from the people they come by. People claim to want to help Bella, but they are willing to overlook the distress that her dad is feeling. Both sets of families also have to learn when to accept help from a offered hand.

This is simply a gorgeously told story. It’s fast paced while being quiet and beautiful. Your heart will clench at the human feeling described here. The loneliness and indecision, the way that we hold trauma in our heart and our mind. The sheer force of will displayed by these characters will crack open a well of emotion within you. This is one of those books that just needs to be experienced, I can’t accurately explain the depth of this novel. A huge thanks to Algonquin for allowing me to take part in this. You can purchased this book on June 8th. You may also head over to my Instagram that day for a giveaway of a finished hardback copy of The Legends of the North Cascades.

“For the first time, Bella comprehended with aching clarity the ultimate estrangement of being human. She began to weep, not for herself, but for all of humanity.”

Rom com may be my go to genre but I am a huge sucker for a survivalist story. I am fascinated by a story of someone living off the grid, which is quite frankly something I could probably never achieve.
.
Dave was an overachiever. He is who you would want by your side on a crisis but after his third tour in Iraq PTSD sets in.
.
He comes home and loses his house, his wife and tragedy is surrounding his life. What he does have is his daughter Bella. He decides to take her and live off the grid in cave. Bella’s only company besides her father is a cat, visions of her mother and the spirit
of the mother and son who lived in that cave.
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Resilience, bravery and connection help Bella and her dad survive this perilous trial in their lives that becomes the stuff of legend. I loved the grandma in this but I was infuriated that she didn’t just rescue Bella so she would have never had to live in a cave. This is a story of legend, loss and resurrection.

Book Review- no spoilers

This is a novel of many genres. Adventure, parental love, survival and a tale of indigenous tribes of Northwest America. Somehow it all comes together to a readable story.

The book centers on the life of Dave and his young daughter Bella. We learn early on in the book that Dave’s wife and mom of Bella dies in an accident. It’s more than Dave can bear after having served three tours of Iraq and is tenuously hanging on to family life as it is. He decides to take his 7 year old daughter deep into the mountains of their home state of Washington and live off the grid.

Dave’s mother and brother disagree with this decision, as do the other people in his life who care about him and Bella. He cannot be convinced to do otherwise, and so father and daughter live in the wilderness and begin to thrive out there with very occasional trips to town for library books and provisions.

There is another story within this story. Bella is an exceptional child for her age, and she can feel the experience of an indigenous family that lived in the same area, thousands of years ago when the world was covered in ice and wooly beasts walked the earth. We get to read the parallel story of this family from long ago.

The switching back between different voices across chapters is not usually something I like (it’s hard for me to keep track of a lot of characters), but the voices were distinctive enough for me to easily transition from person to person.

Though there are sad parts in the book, it’s an easy read, and I give it 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for a review. This book comes out this Tuesday from Algonquin books!

Thank you Algonquin for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Sadly, this one wasn’t for me. I wish it was, it was one of the books I was most excited for in summer 2021.

I was all in for a father taking his daughter on an adventure into the wilderness. What I wasn’t in for was a father with PTSD from serving in the military to take his daughter to live in the wilderness after his wife dies.

I just couldn’t connect with the plot line.

Book Review | Legends of the North Cascades by Johnathan Evison


Legends of the North Cascades by Johnathan Evison
Fiction, Contemporary
Algonquin Books | June 8th, 2021
3.5/5 Stars


When Dave’s wife and Bella’s mother gets into a car accident and doesn’t survive, Dave decides to take Bella with him to live off the grid in the mountains of the North Cascades. Dave is over humanity and feels it has nothing left for him.

These same mountains once homed people centuries before. Bella starts forming kind of mythical bond with these people who were also just trying to find a place where they belonged.


This was a really interesting story. The chapters go between Dave and Bella’s story and the story of people who also once lived in the North Cascades.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I’m so glad I had the chance to read it and be part of the blog tour.

Thank you, Netgalley and Algonquin Books for this arc in return for an honest review.

This novel asks the question, “How far will a parent go to protect their child from the world?” The story switches back and forth between a father who decides to take his young daughter to live in the woods permanently in the Northwest and a mother and son in the Ice Age. Both parents seek to keep their children safe from real (and from perceived) threats.

The problem with the book is that the two stories never fully merge thematically. It left the book feeling lopsided as the reader tries to make the switch between perspectives. There are also breakthrough chapters told from side characters that completely distract from the story being told. This unevenness was too much to overcome in my opinion. I typically like stories that are told from different points of view, but this one felt way too disjointed to be enjoyable or meaningful in any way.

I appreciate Evison’s motive of creating characters that are all deeply connected to the Earth, but I wasn’t able to fully embrace the symbolism because of the constant changes in perspective. Although I think he did a great job creating well-rounded characters with interesting backstories, this wasn’t enough for me to pull through the book with any feelings of goodwill. I also didn’t love the way the ending was presented (which makes it hard for me to end up liking the entire book).

The Legends of the North Cascades is written from multiple perspectives across dual timelines. One being set during the Ice Age and the other in the present. The two storylines converge on each other not just in the setting, but also with the themes of isolation, enduring and the making of legends.

The pacing of the book was rather fast as it is written in short chapters, many of which read like interviews from the townsfolk that Dave and Bella have left behind. For some he is a madman. For others he will forever be a hero.

I found Dave to be a likeable character who loved his daughter wholeheartedly. He wanted the best for her but was too proud and stubborn to seek help even when he knew his demons were getting the best of him. Bella was perhaps my favorite character. She is full of heart and spirit. Curious and full of imagination, she is the brightest star in this book.

There were points in the dialogue where I felt the book would have benefitted from having a sensitivity reader. After authorities show interest in their living situation, Dave likens laws to slavery. As a descendant of slaves I know I am not the only one who would find fault with this sentiment. Following a law or a rule, no matter how heavy-handed or inane, is not the same as being enslaved. It just isn't. And to try to diminish it like that or try to conflate your anger at the system or your unwillingness to follow the rules with being enslaved never works. At another time S'tka talks about outliving her purpose: <em>"that's all the Great Provider had in mind when he created a woman -- to carry men. Carry them in their wombs, and on their backs, and in their hearts, to carry their burdens, and bear their disappointments until such time that a man no longer needs them." </em>In my opinion neither of these statements were necessary to move the narrative along.

Overall, the writing was beautiful. I could just about turn to any page and find sentences that I could read over and over again. I was captivated by Dave and Bella's story and was invested in her outcome.

<i><b><blockquote>The whole rickety bulwark of Dave's defenses were crushed to splinter beneath the realization that . . . he still could not guard Bella from grief or harm, any more than he could deprive her of love and meaningful connection. Bereaved, we are but orphans, dispossessed, impoverished in our solitude. Our only buffer against the cold, cruel world was one another. "</blockquote></b></i>

In LEGENDS OF THE NORTH CASCADES, Jonathan Evison tells the story of a once-heroic, now broken man who retreats to the wilderness of the North Cascades with his 8 year old daughter to live an authentic, true, and worthy life. Throughout this magical, lyrical story, long-past and current realities entwine to pose eternal questions about what is a good life, who we are in relation to others and to ourselves. and what we owe one another. Deftly and beautifully, Evison presents different points of view that enrich his story about what happens when a person leaves the world behind and lives on their own terms. I read this book over several days, gripped by the mysteries, the dangers and the realities of making a life in a cruel, changeable world. I don't know quite how to describe the story other than to say it is compelling wonderful, prompting deep thought as well as admiration for a terrific read. I received an early reader copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

4.5 stars

This was a beautifully written story about a father losing his way as he mourns the loss of his wife and tries to provide for his daughter.

After three tours in Iraq, Dave returns to Vigilante Falls a different person. He has a difficult time connecting to the people he once knew, and when tragedy strikes and he loses his wife, he is forced to find a way to keep going, mainly for his daughter.

Retreating to a cave in the mountains of the North Cascades may sound a bit drastic, but for Dave it is the only way he can truly live without the constant reminder of all that is wrong in the world. At times the conditions are harsh and not exactly the most optimal environment to be raising a child, but Dave does whatever he can to keep him and his daughter together.

One thing I loved about this story was the connection of the past to the present. Bella often dreams of a mother and son fighting to survive at the end of the last Ice Age, and the parallels between their experiences and those of Bella’s and her father’s experiences are strikingly similar. I really enjoyed this story, and while heartbreaking at times, I loved how it all came together in the end. Highly recommend!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4014829060