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The Shipping News

E. Annie Proloux

1993

Rating: 3.5

"The Shipping News" is the winner of the 1994 Pulizer Prize for fiction. This win is actually why I chose to read "The Shipping News".

I enjoyed reading "The Shipping News", but it was a little bit difficult to get into. Proloux's writing style was a bit different, and difficult for me to get used to. She sometimes didn't use subjects (sometimes not even verbs). This was interesting. I didn't necessarily like it nor dislike it. And it was actually fun to read something completely different like that.

So, you may be asking why I didn't rate it higher. Well, I was never "gripped" by the novel. There wasn't even one of those moments where I didn't feel like I could put the book down. The whole of "The Shipping News" was just ok. I enjoyed it, but it certainly isn't going to become a book I would read over and over again.

"The Shipping News" tells the story of a widower who moves from New York with his aunt and his two small children to Newfoundland after the death of his wife and his parents. It is really fascinating to see what life was / is like in Newfoundland. It definitely picqued my curiousity to visit the country where waves freeze.

With all of that said, I do still recommend that you pick up "The Shipping News" and give it a read. It makes for interesting reading anyway.