The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
by Kim Michele Richardson

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical fiction

In 1936, Cussy Mary Carter works for the Pack Horse Librarian Project in and around Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. Her father insists that she needs to quit her job and get married instead, but Cussy knows that the people of the hills need the books and other printed material that she brings to them.

There was a lot to like about this book, from the history that the author brings to life and the heartfelt moment between Cussy and some of her patrons. I’d never heard of the blue-skinned people, and for good reason, considering how people treat anyone who is different. The hardships faced by this community as the country strives to move out of the Great Depression are well-presented and heartbreaking. The way some of her patrons are as hungry for books, magazines, or newspapers as they are for food made me want to be more careful not to take for granted the overwhelmingly easy access we have to books and information in general these days (and in this part of the world in particular). I was really immersed in the setting throughout the book. There are even some real pictures of pack horse librarians and some of their patrons in the back of the book, which I was fascinated by.

On the other side, there were some things about the book that I didn’t like. I almost put it down in chapter 3 and walked away, when the main character had an abortion in such an offhand way that I wasn’t even sure at first that that was what had just happened. The author treats the murder of an unborn child so flippantly that I was appalled, and to make things worse, it’s barely mentioned again in the rest of the text. From that point, I knew that the author and I have vastly different views of the world, and that does come through at other points in the book as well. Beyond that, I struggled a bit with the narration style. It’s one thing for the dialog here to be full of the local dialect of the time period—that does make sense. But since the book is written in 1st person, but the author understandably didn’t want to have the entire book be written in that dialect, Cussy’s narration is mostly more modern and grammatically correct, but with the word “knowed” thrown in a lot. It was weird and sometimes jarring. Cussy’s arguments with her dad about whether she should be allowed to keep working as a librarian or be forced to get married becomes repetitive and drags on too long. I think that it might have been intended to lead to a nice payoff near the end of the book, but for me, it just added tedium.

I really did appreciate this book for the history it brought to life. Overall, though, I had too many issues. The book has a lot of high ratings, so if you’re interested in the story and aren’t bothered by what I mentioned above, you should certainly consider reading it and maybe even check out other reviews at the link below.

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