Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book has a wonderful title and beginning. However, after the start it drags and becomes quite repetitive and boring. The writing style is often immature even when the actual child is not speaking. I found the ending confusing and disappointing. However, what bothered me the most was the author's overt attempt to inject her political attitudes into a work of fiction. Not every reader of fiction is a progressive and left of center. And no southern Illinois is not "banjo land." I mean seriously? This isn't West Virginia or Georgia, and even those states are not worthy of such "look down your nose academic stereotyping." The protagonist's friend asked about her new boyfriend, "Didn't you find out if he was a liberal or conservative?' The heroine, Jo, is aghast that her new found love interest would teach a child to shoot guns. Yet near the end, (WARNING: spoiler alert)- Jo and the lost child are only saved when the boyfriend shoots and kills the "bad guys." That sounds like an endorsement for those defending the Second Amendment rather than pro-gun control. There are the obligatory references to chauvinism and even at the end an "enlightened" endorsement of gay marriage. The irony was not lost on this reader when near the end Jo must pay for a marital attorney and was warned that he was expensive. But of course she is pursuing her dreams in academics studying birds while telling the person recommending the attorney not to worry because she inherited lots of money from her parents. If I want to be lectured to from an academic closed minded leftist point of view, I could read any number of political non-fiction books. However, this has no place in a novel.