This book was well written, but I have mixed feelings about it. ----spoilers kinda. more so allusions to events without naming them---- The book meanders for the majority of the story, small speckles of drama among the daily mundane, but then picks up suddenly and drops you unceremoniously at the end of the story. I think it was by design, but the culmination of events at the end felt rushed and for shock value, like a sudden train crash. There were a lot of elements that were interesting. The considerations for costs of farming, prices of land, urbanization. The element of how pollution can affect communities in ways the people living there might not be aware of or consider, but which have significant impact on their lives. The characters felt real enough, especially in the ways in which they were unlikable. I think this was probably a good book, if from no other indicator than I have found myself thinking of it multiple times since I finished reading it. At the same time it feels hard to tell. I don't think I enjoyed reading it. It's definitely a big slice of Americana.

This is not really my type of book.