How Much of These Hills Is Gold - It lost me!

And so onto the letter "Z" - I was a bit worried about finding a suitable author, but after a quick search, I came up with C Pam Zhang, which is why I found myself reading How Much of These Hills Is Gold. This is the story of Lucy and Sam, who, at age twelve and eleven respectively, find themselves on their own towards the end of the gold rush in the American West. When their Ba dies (Ma already having left them some time earlier), they leave their ramshackle home in search of a new life. Lucy tries to take charge, but it is Sam who dominates and, Lucy discovers, has hidden Ba's body in the trunk their horse is carrying. Sam is determined to find the proper place to bury Ba, deep in the country where buffalo still roam and veins of gold run deep. But the two siblings have different ideas of how they want their lives to go, and while Lucy heads for the security of a town, Sam disappears into the country. Lucy tries to fit in, but is always aware that, as a child of Chinese immigrants, she may never quite fit in, and it isn't until many years later, when Sam reappears, that she realises how much she has missed her sibling and the relationship and shared history that they had. Sam allows her to be truly herself again. Much of the story is told in a series of flashbacks, not necessarily in a linear timeframe. We see how the dreams of, and promises made to, Chinese immigrants who were tempted by the stories of gold, never came to fruition and that the odds were always stacked against them. We also see how the land was stolen from the native American population and how the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. The two main characters are very engaging and there is a real sense of sibling friction, interwoven with an immense amount of love, that felt very real. This is certainly a perspective on history that is new to me. The book is well crafted and the description of the beautiful scenery, juxtaposed with the grim living conditions of those people living on the outskirts of what "civilised" society purported to be, are well told - beauty and ugliness in equal measure. I was totally engaged until the last section of the book, which, for me, suddenly seemed to lose its way and kind of petered out. Maybe it was because what I thought was going to happen didn't, and I didn't get the end I actually wanted. Still worth reading, and for anyone interested in the American West and the Gold Rush, there's a bucketload of things to enjoy!

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 288 print pages.

Price I paid: £3.00.

Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.