Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered is Barbara Kingsolver at her finest a mixing scientific curiosities and historical facts with the emotional drama of a family. The interplay between modern day Willa and nineteenth-century Mary Treat and the ongoing concerns of home and security throughout the novel make for a wonderful backdrop for the drama to unfold. Besides telling the tale of a modern-day family struggling to live below the poverty line, Kingsolver takes this opportunity to comment on capitalism, the environment, and politics without it seeming overly intrusive to the plot. My favorite character was true-to-life Mary Treat who was a naturalist and botanist and correspondent of Charles Darwin living in the planned Utopia of Charles Landis. I was fascinated by Kingsolver’s research and portrayal of this world. Unsheltered is rich with theme and emotion, a great read.