Review: The Valley

The Valley by Helen Bryan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received a Kindle edition of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway a long time ago, but life happened and I only got around to reading it recently.

As I start to write this review, I am on at the start of chapter 5 (page 89 according to my Kindle). It’s been 88 pages of Sophia’s character development and her inability to decide on a suitable husband. The chapters are long and the plot is not moving! At page 119 we finally make it to the boat!

Before Annette Blair became a full-time writer, she worked at a high school in Rhode Island and wrote part-time. One of my English teachers invited her to our class to read and critique the stories of one of our assignments. She started to put down my classmate’s story when my classmate exclaimed, “But it gets better!” The advice that Mrs. Blair gave my classmate (and the rest of us) was, “If you have to say ‘It gets better!’, then everything before that part should be removed from the story.” For some reason this stuck with me. During the first 100+ pages, this memory kept coming back because part of me feels like this advice should apply to this book.

The majority of the story up until that point was unnecessary. This is a slow moving book that takes place over the course of nearly 100 years. We start in 1751 and end in 1833. I'm slightly concerned about getting into the second book because based on the description, the book does not pick up where this one left off. In fact, it starts in 1783, and based on reviews it spans another 100 years. I see the potential for confusion because of this. I guess I will see after I get into the next book.

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