I classify books as "Easy to put down" or "Easy to pick up". Shelter is an easy to pick up book. You wanted to get back to it to find out how the defining event of the novel came to be.
I wanted to read this book for the characters – a birth family, a mother, a son, a
…more father, a son's married family. The characters were well done; you got to know them and the reasons for their behavior. It is true that children really never know their parents. There is so much more to a life than parenting. The sense of duty and independence on the part of the son were believable and sympatric.
The ending was hinted at so it wasn't just a surprise out of nowhere. I appreciate a novelist's ability to cause use to say to ourselves, "I should have seen that coming!"
I have wondered how plausible the ending scene with the father and son really was, given the lack of emotional expression within their culture. After reflection I have decided that it was plausible, but it makes me want to know about their life after the end of the novel. Highest praise for a novel is when I keep thinking about it after I have finished reading it (less)
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