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Title: Tedious
Review: I have read books that deal with human suffering and hardship--Les Miserables, or lately, The Heartsong of Charging Elk--and they inspire me. This one doesn't. In fact, it is tedious in its descriptions of one tragedy after another. What bothered me most is the heroine's inability to do more than work. Yes, hard work is commendable, but so is change, and her character though stoic, is static. She seems to be destined to a life on the level with some animals because her only outlet is to work and then work harder. I think good fiction should give us a glimpse of a better way to live and to respond to the suffering that is life. Julie has one response and never varies from it. Gap Creek has one note to play and pounds it from the first page to the last.
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