Book Review: The Bean Trees

I was excited to pick up a work of fiction by Barbara Kingsolver after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The only other book I've read by her is The Poisonwood Bible. I loved both of them. The Bean Trees, however, was supremely disappointing.

It's about a girl, Taylor, from Virginia who wants to get out of her small town so she buys a junker car and drives across the country. There's really no rhyme or reason to her travels. When she stops in Cherokee Country for car repairs, a random Indian woman puts a baby in Taylor's car. Taylor keeps the kid and ends up in Tuscon. What follows is a bunch of weird, unexplained events that lead Taylor to adopt the little girl.

Nothing about the book spoke to me. In fact, I thought it was a thin story and the writing wasn't anything I would expect from Kingsolver. From now on, I'm sticking to recommended books.