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Book Review of Shadow Tag

Shadow Tag
Shadow Tag
Author: Louise Erdrich
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
Catspaw avatar reviewed on
Helpful Score: 4


I had hoped that this book would be so much more than it was. Instead, it's maudlin and meandering, and told in an affectless tone that tends to disengage the reader from the characters. Adding to the sense of a tale being told at one remove, the dialog isn't in quotes for some reason, making it occasionally difficult to distinguish thought from speech.

The story itself is somewhat less interesting than the synopsis suggests. It's the story of a dysfunctionally married couple, and marginally, thier three children. The parents torment one another, and they and the children live with the tension and fallout. There's a very little bit of a payoff at the end, but it's not worth the long and depressing journey.