Book Review: The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Book: The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Genre: historical fiction

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

We read this book and another similar book (The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek) for book club this past month. We heard that there was a bit of a controversy between these two books, so we thought it would be fun to read them both and compare. 

I managed to read this one and quite enjoyed it. The other one I started, but never finished and sadly it went off my kindle and I don't think I'll worry about getting it back.

Anyway, they are both about a period in history when a bunch of brave and strong women rode on horses through the backwoods of Kentucky to deliver books and magazines to the mountain people. Great premise for a story and one that I am pretty sure both authors came up with on their own!

This one was specifically about an English lady who married a dude from this Kentucky town and came thinking she would have a great adventure. But things did not turn out quite like she imagined and the two of them ended up not really clicking. She ended up doing the job of riding books around the mountains and found her place that way. They other ladies were awesome and became her good friends and she truly become strong on her own. 

Getting to know all these ladies, and then all the other interesting characters was the best part of this story. Very fun. And I've pretty much decided that I'm quite good with the writing style of this author. She is a great storyteller and has a fantastic way of getting you into and engaged in the story. I felt compelled to keep reading this one when I needed to lay it down and that's a great sign, yeah?

Anyway, I guess her book came out a few months after the other one and she was accused of plagiarism, not necessarily because of the main subject, but because some very specific incidences are a bit similar. But after reading up on that and seeing the list... I think they are are so nitpicky that this whole claim was just crazy. And the other book had such a different feel and was more about racial issues and the interesting occurrence of the "blue people of Kentucky" that I really think they are totally different. 

So that's my take on that.

The other book I heard was harder to read and no romance (a big factor for me!) that I have decided not to keep going with it. At least for now. But I am glad to have added this to my have read list. I really enjoyed it!