The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

"I can't run off with your family." 

"Don't think of it as running off with my family." I lifted my eyelids far enough to see the concerned blue or her irises. "Think of it as running off to be with me in a land like the ones we created as children."

"There's no such place, Hanalee."

"We'll make the place ourselves."

I was a little more than excited to read this book. I loved Cat Winter’s In the Shadow of Blackbirds, and was instantly in love with the idea of 1920’s Oregon murder mystery inspired by HAMLET? Yes.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite as overwhelmingly beautiful as I wanted.

Cat really did put a lot of research into this. That's obvious simply by reading the authors note. I appreciate the topics she dealt with, but unfortunately, I simply didn't care for the actual story.

Stats:

Genre:  Historical fiction (Paranormal wannabe)

Feelings: Yep

Cuteness: FRIENDSHIP

Fast pacing: i'm so sorry to say this but this book was so boring.

Series: Nope

Read if you like: Murder. 1920's. Diverse characters.

Content: A lot of talk of sex, but always in the terms along the lines of "The taking of virtue" and a few vaguely rude comments a few boys make because Hanalee and John are found asleep in the woods together. Some disturbing topics regarding hangings and such. Also this book has a gay male character, so there are some scenes that imply a lot to deal with that, which may bother people who aren't comfortable with it.

Trigger warning? Loss of a parent. Violent racism. Violent homophobia.

In summary...Being a girl of color in a 1920's oregon small town is not easy. It's especially not easy when the boy accused of killing your father was just released from prison. But things are not always as they seem, and with the help from some sketchy ghosts...Hanalee very well might discover just that.

Thoughts: Swamp water, pine needles, rough ropes

Messages: Too much to sum up. This book never really takes like, an obvious huge stance regarding racism and homophobia, but it paints a strong picture of what it was like and makes it clear how awful it was. Which is a stance in and of itself.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Just this once, I’m going to combine the “Characters” and “Plot/Writing” part of this review, since the reason I didn’t like them go hand in hand.

-The characters+Plot/Writing-

The root problem as to why I didn’t care for this book is really because it felt half-baked. Don’t get me wrong. The writing was very lovely as to be expected with Cat Winters. But the plot felt void of life. The ghosts? They were tossed in there. In my own writing, I sadly have experienced how hard it is to write a ghost story where the ghosts don’t feel tossed in. My own novel needs to be rewritten because of this.

But these ghosts could have been nonexistent. They felt like they had been put there for plot only purposes, and that’s not how I want my ghosts.

The mystery should have been scary. But it wasn’t. All that being said, this book was scary for other reasons, that I’ll talk about in the “Messages and other” part of this post. This plot was just half-baked.

And the characters really didn’t jump out at me. Hanalee. She was…okay. I appreciated her realism. I appreciated a well shaped diverse character. But I just didn’t care. I should have, but I didn’t. And the other boy. John? I liked him, because he was also a nice diverse, interesting character. And their friendship was wonderfully platonic (For obvious reasons). But I really didn’t care about these characters enough to really care about the story and I don’t know why.

For me, characters are important. No matter how well put together a plot is, if I don’t care about the characters then I don’t care about the plot. I’ve never been one to be able to pick apart plots easily, unless I really think about it. And in this books case, the plot was lacking because the characters were lacking, but they both were lacking because they didn’t feel finished. These characters were g o o d, but they lacked that reader connection. 

The one thing I did love in this book was the setting. It felt vibrant. Real. I adore the 20’s, but I have never thought particularly about the small western town feel of it. So I loved getting that swampy, foresty feel.

-Messages and other-

As said earlier, this is a scary book. Not because ghosts, or murder. But because this book shows so clearly how scary it would actually be for a girl like Hanalee in 1920’s Oregon. It’s scary because even if this wasn’t a murder story, her life would constantly be in danger. Because stepping into a restaurant would put her at risk. And that actually happened.

It was an absolutely despicable time in the terms of racism. Often times jokes are made that the 20’s aren’t much different than now in the sense of homophobia and racism, and while cases like the ones in this book are around, they are never as saturated into the community as they are here. And so, it’s scary to read this book and wonder how people survived. How many homosexuals and colored people got lynched and killed simply because of those things.

For that, this book really is an important one. Any book that deals with these topics is important. Which is why in the end, I did like it. I simply didn’t care about anything except the things it had to say.

Overall, this wasn’t a terrible book. I do think a lot of people will love it, and a lot of people do love it. I simply wasn’t able to care enough to love it.