My favorite part of this book, hands down, was the setting of Pastoral. Each of the characters has a really complicated relationship with Pastoral and we see that range in our three POV characters. I think the background and lore of Pastoral was really well integrated in the story so we didn't need a big info-dump history lesson. I really liked how our POV characters could recognize the pros and cons of living there so it didn't feel like a complete brainwash-y cult situation, but there were certainly cult-like aspects to the community. There were a number of aspects that reminded me a lot of the movie The Village - isolated community, mysterious danger in the woods that keep the community members inside, even a blind main character. The characters are constantly weighing the dangers of staying in the community (lack of medicine, for example) with the dangers of leaving (mysterious illness that lives in the forest). I also liked the choice to not make it clear right away when, exactly, this Pastoral timeline was in comparison to Travis's timeline. Since the community is so isolated, it very much felt like we are stuck in time and thus the story could have been either years before or after Travis found them (the synopsis does give away this answer, but I didn't pick up on that until after I was done reading the book). I think this is an excellent example of the setting being its own character, of sorts. Especially with it being, at times, in direct opposition to what the characters want and standing in their way of reaching their goals.
The multi-POV was fantastic. When we get into the meat of the story in Pastoral, we are pretty frequently switching between Theo, Calla, and Bee's POVs. I really liked how short most of the chapters were (maybe 5-10 pages) which really helped keep me engaged in the story. Each of them had their own plot lines that we explore as well as giving us different view points of different aspects of Pastoral. I also thought the interpersonal tensions between the characters were really well developed and the switching POVs was done to really heighten and explore those aspects. We see one character knowing the other isn't telling the whole truth, then we switch POV and see that other character's reasoning for that choice. I do wish we got a more interactions between our main 3 characters and the other members of the community. We get a few, and we see some of the weekly community meetings, but our main three characters felt very isolated and I wanted to see them with their friends or doing other activities with the other people there.
The beginning was a bit jarring but I got over it fairly quickly and it, overall, didn't lessen my enjoyment of the book. We start of following Travis as he searches for Maggie. We get a pretty in depth explanation of Travis's backstory and his gift for finding people. I was extremely intrigued and immediately invested in Travis. We're following Travis for the first 10% of the book so when we suddenly switch to following Theo, Calla, and Bee, I was a bit confused. The two plot lines do, eventually, converge, but there was a pretty significant gap before that happened. It very much felt like I had just started reading a second book in the middle of this first book and I didn't love how harsh that transition was. I think 10% is long enough for me to get invested in a character and their story so then, having that character basically ripped away, it did take me out of the reading experience for a bit. Luckily, the plot line inside Pastoral was also very interesting so I was able to get back into the book pretty quickly. I do think if either Travis's initial part was shorter and treated more as a prequel or if it was handled in a more dual-timeline type of way it wouldn't have been such a harsh difference and I think it would have made the narrative feel a bit more cohesive.
So when I requested this book from NetGalley, it was just categorized as 'General Fiction' but I think there are some very heavy mystery aspects that are expertly done. The book starts off really strongly with Travis on the search for Maggie and unraveling the mystery of where she went and if she's still alive. However, once we make the switch into Pastoral, those elements are dropped. We do get back to more mystery elements, but it takes us a while to get there. For quite a bit of the book (about from the 10% - 50% mark), we are just following the sort of day to day interactions of Theo, Calla, and Bee. But as the interpersonal tensions rise inside Pastoral, we start to see the cracks and want to explore them to see what the truth is behind the curtain. I think the setting of Pastoral and its cult-ish behavior immediately leads the reader to want to pull back the layers. Most readers with a basic knowledge of cults know communities like this don't just form overnight and they are really unsettling to read about when we've just been plopped into the middle of the situation. So I think it would be fair to say that most readers, by the time the characters start to feel unsettled, are 100% ready to start sneaking around and finding out what secrets we can find and that is where the mystery elements start coming back into play. And once we're full on into investigation mode, this story gets even better. I loved how intricate and complex the mystery became and I was completely blindsided by the reveals. I was guessing all sorts of crazy theories trying to tie all the threads together and when all was revealed, it was *chef's kiss* perfection.
Overall, this was a fantastic read and will probably go down as one of my favorite reads for 2021. I absolutely loved the setting of Pastoral and exploring the history of the place. I thought the multi-POV elements were used expertly and I loved the mystery elements that emerged in the last 1/2 of the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC
Expected publication date is December 7, 2021
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