The Last Wise Woman

Overall opinion: I enjoyed some parts, but disliked more.

I had hoped for this book to not be yet ANOTHER "women are undervalued, oppressed, disrespected, etc." social commentary, but it let me down there. I wonder if it's possible for a book to be published these days without that being a major plot point. It is so tired and played out. So that's one aspect I disliked. Before I dive into a rant about the story, I must make it clear that there were scenes, lines, sections that I enjoyed more than I expected to, and those kept me reading. The overarching idea of the plot and the first maybe half of how it went, were mostly entertaining. I liked Ryder and llama girl.

Something that has me conflicted is that I'm a Christian, which is a big part of my life, and I believe in the Holy Spirit, God's miracles, and all of that. But even coming from that background, the religious parts of this story struck sour with me. They felt contrived, trite, out of place. Add on top of that the characters claiming that there's a God Mother, and I'm just baffled about what's supposed to be going on in this book. The other main negative that I saw is that the story doesn't grow in a satisfactory way; there's a ramp up to a climax, but it just ends and we don't really get a storyline that wraps up nicely.

I can't recommend this book, but I'm sure many others do enjoy this type of story, so I'm glad it was written for them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC. I had high hopes for this novel as it said it would be perfect for fans of The Alchemist, and I wondered if it could be a companion novel for that when I teach it in world literature. Unfortunately, the writing wasn't very smooth, and there was none of the "magic" I thought I'd feel reading the words. While the subject matter is similar to that of The Alchemist, the stilted prose makes this not a good fit for my literature class.

This is an unputdownable novel by Kathleen Baldwin, and I read everything by this author so I wanted a copy of this novel straight away. And I was not disappointed. Sophie is a character that feels real. Well done again, Kathleen Baldwin, this is your best novel yet. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.