The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

You ever read a book and just hate it, but then you realize you're more than halfway through and you keep thinking the book is going to change and become what you want it to be? But the book never does that? And suddenly you're 80% of the way through the book and you realize you need to just finish it? Well, that's how it was with me and The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters.

It started off in a way that really got me excited. In the 1960s, a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Their four-year-old daughter Ruthie goes missing and her older brother Joe was the last one to see her. Great start, right?

But the next chapters switches to a woman's point of view reminiscing about her childhood and how she had nightmares and we soon learn that this is the adult Ruthie, now known as Norma, who grew up in a white family with a somewhat absent father and an alcoholic mother.

And like...that's the book. There's no mystery. We know what happened. So, okay, I said to myself after that disappointing second chapter, maybe this is a character driven story. So let's settle in for learning about characters.

Womp womp. It was like reading what an eighth grader thinks about adults. Norma is cold and kind of like a robot. I guess we can understand how she got that way, but almost all of her interior thoughts are hidden from us. I guess Peters wanted us to draw some inferences from her actions and what she finds out, but frankly, I needed a lot more help. Meanwhile, Joe, who grew up in a very loving First Nations home, is an abusive alcoholic and his motivations for his anger are never really clear. Again, I think maybe Peters is wanting me to make inferences about the lives of indigenous folks and the history thereof and how Joe would feel guilty over Ruthie's disappearance, but, hey, I've never been the older sibling of  a missing indigenous child. I would like some help on how that would shake out. 

So if you're not going to give me a plot (dear lord, nothing happens in this book) and you're going to keep the character's thoughts mostly off-page, WHY BOTHER WRITING THIS BOOK? I don't know, friends. I don't know. A real snooze. 1.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

A responsibility comes with that, being the youngest, the last baby. I never did live up to the responsibility (timestamp 2:14:34)

Is there a responsibility? I don't think I feel it. LOL.

You rarely notice change when you see someone every day. I hadn't noticed her skin start to wrinkle or the dim brown of an age spot as it spread across her jaw, the slight belly that came with menopause and stayed. (time stamp 2:36:05)

This was good observational writing. 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

...his bald head red from the cold, his hat in his hands. (timestamp 1:19:12)

...showed two girls standing on the steps of a church, hats straight and hands at their sides, smiles wide and mishcevious. (timestamp 1:44:13)

...a large hat box in her arms. (timestamp 1:58:40)

She, with a hat box in her hands, and I with a dish towel in mine. (timestamp 1:59:03)

...adjusting her sun hat to cover her eyes. (timestamp 2:06:16)

...men who tipped their hats when people walked by. (timestamp 2:44:47)

...blue hospital hat on his head...(timestamp 3:52:43)