White Horse

This committed the most egregious sin of horror books: it wasn't scary. At all. Not once. But even worse, it wasn't even horror. This never should have been pitched as a horror book. If I weren't petty, I'd say this is definitely more of a mystery than it is horror. But I am petty, so I'll be honest and say this is first and foremost a relationship drama book about a shitty marriage between the protagonist's cousin and her husband, viewed through the lens of someone who occasionally sees the ghost of her mother. I couldn't believe that, half way through the book, we had the protagonist and her cousin have, quite literally, the same exact argument in three different settings. And it just kept happening over and over and over. I'd actually think it was funny if it weren't so tiresome. There was such hyper focus on the damn cousin and the damn dead friend that distracted from the plot. They had no bearing on the story, and only served as a feeble way to lay guilt on the main character's mind. I should have DNFed this at the half way point.

My favorite part of this book was that the protagonist was realistic and three dimensional to me and presented in a way that was unusually sincere. Despite the average writing and rough-around the edges plot, I have a feeling this woman by some magic really exists somewhere. I thought I would roll my eyes at the ghost jewelry aspect of the plot. However, I am starting to warm up to the supernatural-mystery-combo. Especially pleasant was that I paired this dish with The Fire Keeper's Daughter. While FKD is an excellent YA Native American novel of a higher quality, they went well together. Wurth's protagonist was less of a heroine and more of a real person, even if the writing needed more vivacity.
The contrast between the two also highlighted how pathetically little I know about the depth and breadth of Native American culture and experience, and how many more stories are out there waiting to be discovered is exciting.