Review: The Frontiersman's Daughter

The Frontiersman's Daughter by Laura Frantz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I'm not sure what I think of this book. I enjoyed the frontier setting. There's plenty of detail to make you feel like you're there, and this is one time period it's hard to find good books about once you've read the Little House books.

Maybe I'm missing something (if I am, please tell me!), but a lot of the books set in the American frontier are 'inspirational', which often means written with a religious message instead of just for the enjoyment of the reader. The 'moral lesson' type of book can hamper my overall enjoyment at times, since that's not what I'm reading for. This is one of those, which is one reason I'm not sure I really liked it.

It's quite a long book, and really has three sections. The first is while Lael is a girl living on the frontier with her family. Then it goes off to the East coast with Lael being in school there for a while, and then back to the frontier with her as a young woman.

This felt a little disjointed to me, especially because Lael doesn't seem to know her own mind and is in love with enough men throughout that you're really not sure who she'll end up with (or who you want her to). The 'inspirational' part of the story influences the ending a great deal, since it starts to get quite preachy towards the end, and I'm not totally convinced or completely satisfied with the ending because of this.

I'm rambling, but that tells you how ambivalent I am about this book. Yes, it was ok. Yes, it annoyed me at times, and I found some of the plot to be contrived due to the inspirational motivation for the book. And yes, I did mostly enjoy it, I think, mainly because of the setting.



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