The story is a nice little tale of a family’s crisis and its will to survive and be with one another in the time of need. Ernt Allbright returns from the war in Vietnam and has become a totally changed person, he feels restless in a society that he once loved, he wants an escape into another world and thus plans to shift to Alaska with his family.
Luckily the family supports him and the wife and daughter show their willingness in settling in another place something unique in the western society where families usually break in such circumstances. The book describes in detail the weather and the temperature in Alaska during the summer and then the winter. Kristin Hannah has collected all the details about the place so nicely that we can easily assume that she was one among those family members.
The family shifts during the summer and thinks that they have made a better choice in life, they enjoy the sun in the morning and feel cozy at night in their little hut but then came the cruel winter of Alaska which made them alone in the community as there was none to help them in this cruel weather. The family for the first time felt the horror of eighteen-hour a chilled night when they have no market to buy food from and no television or other technology to rely upon.
The pros and cons of living in Alaska are in so much detail that we don’t have to read about the land from any other book, its climatic condition and also the food shortage in the winter, the survival techniques of the native’s everything is described in an orderly manner. The narration by Julia Whelan is an extra topping that motivates us to hear the story all night long.
Kristin’s other books like the Night Road, Winter Garden and The Nightingale are also interesting enough to be some of the best stories for the listeners.
