Book Review: Flight Behavior
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A fine book, but I thought not really her best. There is an interesting triad of themes in religiosity, scientific curiosity, and population dynamics (as it applies to butterflies, sheep and people.) But the book doesn’t really do much with it, at least not a whole lot more than it could; of particular note, while we start of with a really interesting comparison of Dellarobia to Moses in the first couple of chapters, it is quickly whisked away until, a little surreally, it reappears in the very last. Dellarobia’s liberal-in-conservative-country character is cut from the same mold as other main characters throughout Kingsolver’s books, but in this case she seems a little uninspired; whereas Taylor Greer in The Bean Trees was an absolute phenomenon. I suspect like most readers, I thought Hester’s character was perhaps the most interesting, since we start to see her in a different light as the novel progresses. The others were a little unsatisfying. I may be judging Flight Behavior rather harshly; it is after all a fairly gripping book, and it’s long on sympathy, which is not a bad thing. Set against such stellar works as The Poinsonwood Bible and The Lacuna though, it’s a bit of a disappointment.