14. Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Audio read by the author, beautifully!

15 discs (16 hrs. 56 min.)

2012, Harper Audio, $30.95

437 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished April 14, 2013

Genre: CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.79

My Rating 4.5

Acquired TPPL

Setting: contemporary Appalachian Tennessee

1^st sentence/s:  "A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.  Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise.+

My comments:  My rating is actually a 4.5. Why not 5? Because there's just a little too much scientific explanation in places. However, I'm glad I listened to the book instead of reading it, because I would have skimmed over those parts if I were reading and while listening was forced to listen to them - and they were interesting, thought-provoking, and worrisome. The added plus of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful voice and accent made me upset when the book was over. I wanted more, more, more! At the beginning of the book I was quite unsure whether I'd like the protagonist, Dellarobia  It was a weird introduction to a character - someone sneaking off to cheat on her husband. However, the story was outstanding, and incredibly beautifully written. And tiny, red-haired Dellarobia was a superb character. Kingsolver is my favorite writer. I don't know anyone who can put words together like she does. Global warming. Monarch butterflies. Hardship and hard times in Appalachia. Mothering. Really good mothering. Interesting, REAL, well-fleshed characters. Honesty. Hmmm....I loved it.

Goodreads Review: Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.  Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.