Though Kingsolver's style of writing is on its own intriguing this book just. . . didn't do it for me. It had a large number of important points and showed many different sides of the same issue through all the different points of view but it simply could not keep my interest. There were so many unnecessary things added into the plot that sometimes I skipped whole pages just to move on to something that was worthwhile. Not to mention that the characters themselves annoyed me to no end. All they did was piss and moan. They are so self-centered it was hard for me to feel any sort of connection to them. There were some moving moments but in the long run this novel should have ended up being half the length it turned out to be. It just kept dragging on and on. I definitely would not recommend this one for pleasure reading.