I first encountered Erdrich in an old "Best American Short Stories" anthology a few years ago, and it was neat to encounter in this book the chapter ("Scales") that had appeared as a story in that anthology that made me want to read more by Erdrich in the first place. I didn't love this one as a cohesive book -- it felt a little scattered or disjointed to me, but then I did read the first quarter and then break for about a week before reading the rest, so maybe the shortcoming is in how I read the book -- but I did very much like a lot of the writing in it. So, four stars for the prose, but probably 3ish for the story itself.

Louise Erdrich is a great writer. This book is very much character driven rather than story driven so may not be for everyone, but if you appreciate good writing you will like this.