Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

genre: contemporary fiction

Willa's home is falling apart.  The physical structure that is housing her family is literally crumbling into pieces and for Willa, it feels like a metaphor for both the world around her and the intimate circle of her people.  Trying to hold things together is an art she's practically mastered but this may be beyond even her own scope.  

A couple hundred years previously, another family lived in this same New Jersey town - but what was crumbling instead was a common world view that placed creationism at it's center, as wild ideas about "science" and "evolution" were throwing society into an outrage.  For one school teacher, just trying to teach in a way that explains the natural world according to Darwin, was an almost insurmountable challenge.

I truly enjoyed this novel.  I liked both the past and present storyline, I liked trying to figure out how they would intersect.  I feel like I was learning as I read and it was interesting to try and imagine how hard it would've been for those who saw the truth of Darwin's ideas and knew what it would take for people to believe them.  Willa's present day story was mostly just challenge after challenge but I appreciated the dynamics within the family - so believable, both hard and tender and so exasperating.  

Most of all, I love how the idea of "shelter" was sprinkled throughout this book - both the shelter we use to take cover from the elements but also the people who give us the shelter we need to feel safe and, just as importantly, seen.