Review: Heartwood

Heartwood by Amity Gaige

I don’t know why this book only got 3.9 stars on Goodreads, because I’m giving it ***** (five!)

Maybe because people didn’t like the way the story jumped around from person to person:

 (1)   the first person POV of the head ranger directing the search

 (2)   the subject of the search, a nurse who disappeared on the Appalachian Trail

 (3)   the woman in the retirement community who thought the subject was her daughter at first but then realized not, but she got obsessed with an online pen-pal discussing the subject

 (4)   the fellow hiker who’d had to leave the trail due to family issues, and who blamed himself for not being with her when she got lost.

I was surprised at all the people, too. But I absolutely could not put the book down no matter who was talking. And I never, never wanted to skip forward because I thought all four of them were equally interesting.

 So clearly, I loved it!  It was very surprising, too, and had a lot of deep ideas. Very much concerned with mothers and daughters and the bonds between then.