Really enjoyed this novel. It started slowly and had me hooked halfway, as will most good books. The story's beginning is set in a seemly idyllic town where Rainy and Lark are settled and surrounded by friends and resources. They seemingly have a handle on their community roles. They contribute literacy, they contribute music, and they thrive productively in a larger society that appears to be fading.

but trouble comes through sometimes, as you know. Arrives on its way to somewhere else. Maybe decides to stay.

Faced with loss and danger, Rainy takes to Lake Superior to improvise some sort of future. Enger weaves so many themes and characters through Rainy's adventures across Lake Superior in a post-literate society. The book explores escape, trust, music, fear, and hope. I noticed ideas and concepts were mirrored across points of the story. Ideas echo across the waters and character foils appear in distant downs.

Although the larger politics of the story is dystopic and important, the world building is done entirely through Rainy's narration. Information about the world trickles in through small interactions and recollections. What's more important is that the larger political situation increases despondency and it encourages perverse human tendencies, like the power to act cruelly and violently. Across the novel Rainy encounters people who respond and act differently to these circumstances.

a romantic fears romance is not enough

Rainy is a quick judge and is able to recognize the good and beauty in nature and people. This is an ideal characteristic for a traveling sailor. However nature and beauty are also the sources of terrible things, storms and adversaries, known and unknown. And out on Superior Rainy grapples with seeing a hopeful future through the fog of his conditions. Will our lives and experiences echo into the future? do we have the ability to create something better?