Name: Kingdomtide
ISBN: 9780008317713

Rye Curtis

The lives of two women—the sole survivor of an airplane crash and the troubled park ranger who leads the rescue mission to find her —intersect in a gripping debut novel of hope and resilience, second thoughts and second chances

Kingdomtide

The lives of two women -- the sole survivor of an airplane crash and the troubled park ranger leading the rescue mission -- collide in this "gripping" novel of tough-minded resilience (Vogue). The sole survivor of a plane crash, seventy-two-year-old Cloris Waldrip finds herself lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of Montana's rugged Bitterroot Range, exposed to the elements with no tools beyond her wits and ingenuity. Intertwined with her story is Debra Lewis, a park ranger struggling with addiction, a recent divorce, and a new mission: to find and rescue Cloris. As Cloris wanders mountain forests and valleys, subsisting on whatever she can find as her hold on life grows more precarious, Ranger Lewis and her motley group of oddball rescuers follow the trail of clues she's left behind. Days stretch into weeks, and hope begins to fade. But with nearly everyone else giving up, Ranger Lewis stays true until the end. Dramatic and morally complex, Kingdomtide is a story of the decency and surprising resilience of ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances. In powerful, exquisite prose, debut novelist Rye Curtis delivers an inspiring account of two unforgettable characters whose heroism reminds us that survival is only the beginning.

Cindy

** spoiler alert **
           I'll tackle the good stuff first: I really liked Cloris' story and would have read the book for her story alone. Curtis breathes new life into the "surviving the wilderness" trope (which is often narrated from the perspective of a healthy, young male -- see: Hatchet) by telling it from the first-person perspective of an elderly woman with little outdoorsy knowledge whatsoever. I loved Cloris' reflections and musings on life as she struggles to maintain her grip on it in the woods. I love that she defends her perspective staunchly, even though in retrospect, she struggles to justify some of the decisions she made, such as why she ran in the opposite direction of the search party.

However, the novel's narration adheres very rigidly to an alternating A-B structure, from Cloris' storyline (1st person) to Debra Lewis' (3rd person). Again, I can't stress how much I liked Cloris', but Debra's was lacking. The 3rd person narration didn't do it for me; it felt too impersonal for a plotline that was truly messy and complex. (While reading, I thought Cloris and Debra would meet at the end of the book, which could have justified why Debra's narration was 3rd person, but alas. More on that later.) I didn't really feel anything toward Bloor or Jill, and the messiness of Debra's life and her choices lacked the complexity that would have added grip. (Okay, we get it, she drinks from a thermos of Merlot.) I found myself inadvertently speeding through Debra's storyline. And the fact that these two storylines remain parallel to the very end, never to converge or even meet, was very underwhelming.

Kingdomtide

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