News of the World

Author: Paulette Jiles

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher, 2016

Pages: 224

Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

Review: This book hit many points of interest for me - time period (post Civil War), a ten year old character (my oldest is 10), captives being returned (Wild West theme and psychologically interesting), etc.

Chapter 1 drew me in and then the story began to drag. At only 224 pages though, I was convinced I could get through it. I also felt the author was setting the reader up and that the novel would pick up again and end strong. It's a National Book Award finalist, for heaven's sake. It just had to get better.

The last chapter was the highlight of this novel, but I spent the majority of this novel bored out of my mind. Maybe it was just the wrong book to read right now. It should have been such a great read.