![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The 19th Wife
Mar. 30th, 2020 05:01 pmI picked up The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff as part of a large charity shop haul some time ago and took it on holiday to read. It's a chunky book and it took me a long time to get through it, but I mostly found it engaging and enjoyable.
It's basically two very different books mashed together, with a common theme, though. One is the story of Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's 19th wife, who left the Mormon church and campaigned to get polygamy made illegal in the United Stated in the 1870s. The other is the story of Jordan Scott, who grew up in an extreme Mormon sect, was evicted at 14, and whose mother is arrested for shooting his father at the start of the book (she was his 19th wife).
So, they are sort of connected, and the two stories do come together a little bit by the end. But the 1800s prose of Ann Eliza's story, and Jordan's teenage voice in the modern timeline are so very different that it was quite jarring to switch back and forth throughout the book.
Both stories were interesting and well written, but they could easily have made individual (and much shorter) books, and I think both might have been better for a single point of focus.
Both stories also just kind of petered out towards the end, with not much of a proper conclusion.
However, those reservations aside, this was an interesting and educational read, which I did enjoy overall.
It's basically two very different books mashed together, with a common theme, though. One is the story of Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's 19th wife, who left the Mormon church and campaigned to get polygamy made illegal in the United Stated in the 1870s. The other is the story of Jordan Scott, who grew up in an extreme Mormon sect, was evicted at 14, and whose mother is arrested for shooting his father at the start of the book (she was his 19th wife).
So, they are sort of connected, and the two stories do come together a little bit by the end. But the 1800s prose of Ann Eliza's story, and Jordan's teenage voice in the modern timeline are so very different that it was quite jarring to switch back and forth throughout the book.
Both stories were interesting and well written, but they could easily have made individual (and much shorter) books, and I think both might have been better for a single point of focus.
Both stories also just kind of petered out towards the end, with not much of a proper conclusion.
However, those reservations aside, this was an interesting and educational read, which I did enjoy overall.
