Winter's Bone

The sheriff's deputy at the front door brings hard news to Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. Ree's father has disappeared before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them) are part of life in Rathlin Valley. With two young brothers depending on her and a mother who's entered a kind of second childhood, sixteen-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. She has grown up in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks and learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. But along the way to a shocking revelation, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.


I'm not gunna lie, the entire reason I read this book was so that I could watch the movie guilt free. I am kinda in love with Jennifer Lawrence right now, and the movie adaptation of this book was her first Oscar nomination. I didn't even read the little back synopsis on the book, I was just perusing the online library, requested two other books (for when I am going too and from and am in Hawaii) because there is a wait list and decided to grab one more that I could get now, so that I could start it and not have to worry about finishing it before we leave. The way things worked out, this book is relatively short and I finished it in three days (it kinda boosted my book reading ego after taking so long to finish A Dance With Dragons)

Without knowing much about this book going into it, but knowing that Lawrence plays Ree in the movie, I found myself drawing a lot of comparisons between Ree and Katniss. For the most part, I think Lawrence is a very eclectic actress and doesn't get type-cast really, but these two rolls are very similar. Katniss and Ree both raise younger siblings because their mother's have suffered a breakdown of sorts and can't take care of their families, the dad's are not around for one reason or another, they are from low socioeconomic status communities, and both are rather cold without many friends.

I found the book very compelling, and shocking at times (but it made for a very slow moving movie). For some reason I was thrown off by the fact that references were made to CDs and other relatively modern inventions. It really felt like this book should take place 40 years ago, I think it is mostly because of the poor community. When you hear about these people living using a potbelly stove for heat, it seems to make me think of times where I figure that would have been normal. I suppose I also tend to I think that farming communities seem quaint and old fashioned, and it makes me think of times of old...

This book isn't for everyone, there is lots of drug use and violence, but I can understand that those are a testament of less affluent communites. The book was OK, but I would find it difficult to recommend to just anyone.