2011-06 - The Secret River, by Kate Grenville

06 - The Secret River, by Kate Grenville, 333 Pages, Harper Perennial, 2005
WHY I PICKED IT: I don't know.  This book has been sitting in my "to read" pile for two years, unread. 
ELAPSED TIME: 2 days
RATING: Good

This story was quite interesting in that it provided a context for two types of criminal that existed in London in the early 1800s.  Those who store by necessity, and those who stole out of convenience... and how they came to be sent to Australia.  The story of the early settlements in Sydney, and the path of those convicts to freedom and ultimately a full pardon was relatively easy, and necessary for the colonizations of that far-away continent.

The necessary strength of those who went inland to claim their fortune, the communication and misunderstandings with the natives, and choices that they made regarding their interaction with them were believable, but the characters lacked depth... and once Ms. Grenville had taken us through that journey, she spent the final 20 pages wrapping up the next 30 years in a way that was ... well unnecessary.  Was it simply to give us closure on those characters future?  I don't know, but it was hard to relate, and felt like I was reading the notes she made when planning the plot.

This book is barely good.  If it was historical fiction about a place I knew, I will admit that it would have been a solid "meh," but I hadn't read about early settlers to Australia before, and so I rate this a tentative "good."  I acknowledge that I will not remember these characters.