Amity & Sorrow

Summary (from the publisher): A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she's convinced will follow them wherever they go - her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can't imagine what the world holds outside their father's polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley's abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity & Sorrow is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.

Review: I received a copy of this book from Net Galley.

I've read several novels that deal with polygamy and always found them interesting so I was drawn to this novel about a mother and her two teenage daughters who are fleeing from their polygamous compound. Amarenth was one of fifty wives, but decided to flee her husband when she finds proof that her husband is not as honorable and honest as she once thought. Yet her daughters Amity and Sorrow have never known a life outside of polygamy - they cannot read, they have never heard of a map, and have never seen a working television. "No phone, no electricity. They cooked with propane and heated their house and outbuildings with wood from their forests. They weren't on the grid." The family ends up with farmer Bradley after wreaking their car in Oklahoma, and struggle to adjust to life after the compound.

I had a hard time connecting with the characters of this book, in part because this is written in a sort of dreamy language that alludes to its meaning rather than clarifying intent. Amaranth, previously called Amy, fell into the life of polygamy as a desperate and lonely teenager, who was tricked by her husband. She seems to fall for the polygamous life by degrees and inches, until the final straw forces her to confront the reality of what her life has become; "Who was her husband, who claimed to be God? Who was her child to believe him? Who was she to have sanctioned this when it all started so long ago, back when their faith was made of charity and compassion, a dream of creating a family for women who had no one? How had love led them here?"

Most distasteful is Sorrow, who fights her mother every step of the way in her attempt to be reunited with her father. Sorrow believes herself to an oracle and a chosen one. Sorrow is unforgivable in her willingness to hurt anyone that stands in her way, including her sister. Although Sorrow deserves some leeway because she simply longs for the only life she has ever known, her ruthlessness is unwarranted. I wondered the whole book how Amity, but especially Sorrow, could ever have a normal life after the childhood they had experienced. On the other hand, this seems more possible for Amity who is willing to break what were formerly rules in her old life and wishes to explore the new world she finds herself in.

All in all, I found the characterization in this weak and the relationships stilted. The use of flashbacks helped clarify details about why these women were fleeing, but I found the narrative style too metaphorical at times: "She can grow on his land and be planted. She can learn to root herself and hope to flower. She can plant what was sacred and see what would grow" Finally, I'm unsure of what sort of life Amity will know now that she and her mother have found freedom - in the form of a struggling farmer in the middle of rural Oklahoma who is struggling to provide for himself and his father, let alone taking on other people.

Stars: 2