PositiveNew York Time Book Review... meticulously researched ... The author couldn’t have found a more bizarro clan to profile than the LeBarons, whose history of murdering family members, mental illness and incest rivals that of the Hapsburgs ... I grew progressively angrier as I read this book. While Denton provides an excellent history of a polygamist subculture, she never fully explains why women choose to stay in a religion that treats them so shabbily ... Denton’s book is a testament to what happens when male power, under the guise of religious conviction, goes unchecked.
Kelli Jo Ford
MixedThe New York Times Book Review... rolls about like a tumbleweed buffeted by desert breezes, meandering aimlessly around thorny issues of intergenerational poverty and female despair but never quite launching into a satisfying story or even providing a convincing case for mediocrity ... These secondary characters outshine the three women because they are more complex and surprising ... The slow death of this novel can be traced to one fatal flaw: Its main characters are boring. They cling to soul-shredding creeds and rancid men and exhibit an infuriating lack of agency. Instead of evolving in dramatic or profound ways, they remain passive and long-suffering. As a consequence, the story fails to move the reader ... Toward the end of Crooked Hallelujah, Ford implies that education and reason is the antidote to these thwarted female lives ... The novel concludes with a disjointed 30-page section on apocalyptic forces of nature scouring Texas, but I’d rather end on this focused and hopeful note. Perhaps a brighter future awaits for at least one of these pitiful women.
Joyce Carol Oates
MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewOates has long been preoccupied with male violence, racial strife and female victimhood. My Life as a Rat has all three of these elements in abundance ... After a while, Violet’s trajectory seemed predictable, her torturous penance too prolonged. I kept hoping for a Lisbeth Salander moment, when she’d start punching the world back.
