when i said i wanted to diverge from my normal reading patterns, this is exactly what i meant. this books is a riveting historical fiction with high tensions & cowboys (tom blyth i’m coming for your genre). with beautiful descriptions & a good use of language & accents to accentuate the time period, it explores discussions surrounding spirituality & fate in an interesting way. my mind also wandered towards the old idea of manifest destiny that was extremely prominent in america during this time, id love to know if this into consideration for barry. the book seems very experimental in his writing & although i haven’t read any of his other works, unfortunately it just didn’t fit right for me. although parts of the writing is gorgeous, shown in my post, other parts were hard to follow & sometimes felt a bit jarring due to the lack of punctuation & detail. this of course may be a style he’s experimenting with but it also doesn’t help in describing intimate scenes of women overall.there are also scenes of s*xual assault which i thought could have been treated better so please keep that in mind. i really liked the character of polly & how she managed her fearlessness & recklessness in her actions but she’s also the character i felt that i actually knew. overall, i felt that this was a story i appreciated more than i enjoyed but am pleased i was exposed to different styles.