Should this book stay on the list?

The book fit the location (Pennsylvania) and coal mining history of the area but I think there could be a better choice (although I couldn’t give you a title at this moment).  It only rated 2.5 stars for me. I thought the writing was poor.  I thought the main character, Emma, was continually outraged but it didn’t seem genuine.  It annoyed me that there were multiple paragraphs with multiple thought questions (6 questions in one paragraph).  It can be a useful technique, but it was overused.  A “do gooder” falling for the “bad boy” who ends up inheriting the mine?  (Hmmm…) At one point she asked herself, “Would she have to leave to keep sane?”  I asked myself, “do I need to stop reading this book to stay sane?”

Aside:  to be fair, I had just finished Barbara Kingsolver’s book, “Demon Copperhead” so maybe it wasn’t the best follow up book….

I thought this book was a good fit for this challenge. It wasn’t the best book I’ve read this year, I thought the end was too contrived and wrapped things up too neatly and implausibly. But I did enjoy reading it, and was very compelled to finish the book. I’m not sure that setting the book in Pennsylvania was critical to the story, I’m assuming that coal mining practices of the time were pretty similar across state lines.

I concur with both Anita’s and Megan’s comments.  I won’t report their issues with the book.  It fits the challenge in terms of being set in Pennsylvania.  It does give a rough idea of the horrors of early mining practices.  But it is not a good book.