142 Ostriches by April Davila
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I went into this book not thinking I’d really like, and yet found myself absorbed into this weird world of Ostrich farming and family drama in the California desert. This book was the last pick for my library’s book club and I listened to in on audio. This may have positively impacted my experience with the book because I could zone in and out of it. There’s not a complex plot or even complex characters; it’s just a story of a young woman finding out what her path is and what things need to be shed in order for her to find her own way. All of the characters are very flawed, albeit some more than others, but I do think it honestly shows that even good people can make bad decisions when it comes to toxic families. There’s this prevalent idea that family comes first and that should be the rubric for our decisions, but this book tackles the idea that sometimes families are selfishly toxic and putting them first means the ruin of you and them. There’s some wild outcomes to the decisions that are made and it loses touch with reality but in the end I enjoyed the reading experience and would definitely recommend this for a road trip or a beach read.