Thursday, June 21, 2018

The Hawkman by Jane Rosenberg LaForge


The Hawkman by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing (June 2018)
320 pages, eBook (provided by Publisher for review)
Book Rating: 4 Stars

This is an imaginative retelling of a Brothers Grimm tale (The Bearskin), in which a WWI veteran suffering from severe PTSD struggles with reentering civilian society, homelessness, and ostracism. The spinster that tries to help him ends up suffering a terrible illness as a result. I enjoyed the way the veteran and the spinster were described as having animal qualities at times and human qualities at others, as if you can’t always tell just exactly how they should be categorized. I could have done with a little less background on the spinster, which included many short folktales that I found largely unnecessary to grasping the overall story. The ending was a bit fantastical, and not quite what I would have wished, but was in line with the trajectory of the story. Interesting, thought-provoking read!