News of the World

"Life was not safe and nothing could make it so, neither fashionable dresses nor bank accounts"

Paulette Jiles

News of the World

So often books set during the settling of the west deal with questions of belonging, and where ones place is in an ever changing world. This is true of News of the World. Following the journey of retired Army Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd as he travels through Texas, in the wake of the Civil War, with a young orphan who had lived with the Kiowa tribe for four years after the murders of her parents.

The story is very compelling, using the young girl, Johanna, and the Captain as foils for each other, both trying to find ways to live in their ever changing world. They each deal with their own loneliness: Johanna struggles with assimilation into a new culture and the seeming abandonment of her Kiowa parents, and the Captain coming to terms with the death of his wife and the changes in Texas after the Civil War as he travels around Texas making a living reading the news. Together they come to terms with the world and find support in each other.

I'm not sure how I felt about this book. The story was compelling, it is a fantastic tale that is reminiscent of True Grit. However, it was anticlimactic. Though several of the obstacles that the Captain and Johanna faced were extremely gripping and terrifying, but they never read that way. The characters themselves were unbelievable. The Captain was too perfect. He had only perfect war stories, he was only ever perfectly patient with Johanna, all of his solutions were easily come by, and the ones where he broke the law had no consequences. As a result, the heart wrenching and tender scenes towards the end of the book fell flat and lacked emotion, despite the fact that we had been with the characters for 200 pages. 

This is a story that has a lot of potential. However, this attempt fell flat. I do hope that someone adapts it to the big screen, and gives the characters more emotional depth. I think this is one of my least favorite books I have read. It will hit the shelves March of 2016.