Sounding Line

From the book cover

Pocket Snow has a lot on his mind even before the unidentifiable flying object crashes into the water at Perry's Harbour, sending local fishermen scrambling to find survivors of an assumed plane crash. The excitement seems far away from the Snow household, as Pocket's mother approaches death, and his father tries to cope.

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I came across Anne DeGrace's Sounding Line at Coles Bookstore. I was there to buy a book light using my a birthday GC I got from my mom. After buying the book light, and three other books, I still had some room on my GC. Sounding Line was by the cash and had a 'Heather's Pick' sticker on it, so I figured I'd give it a try.

It's a decent read. While reading it, I kept thinking about Marilynne Robinson's Home. I don't know if it's because both novels take place in a small town and are based loosely on real-life events, or it could be that I found DeGrace's writing style very similar to Robinson's.

Sounding Line is a nice light read, but there's really nothing new or exciting about it. I really enjoyed DeGrace's depiction of life in a small fishing village. The characters are entertaining, although some of them seem to be based on small town stereotypes. The only think I really dislike about this novel is the short,  second-person chapter intros. I was never able to say for certain which character they were referring.

While I don't regret using my birthday GC to buy this novel, I can't recommend it but I won't try to dissuade anyone from reading it either.

3/5