Book Review: These Is My Words, by Nancy Turner

These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd give this 4 1/2 stars. It was pretty much everything I enjoy in a book. I like the diary device for telling a story, and I liked the main character. I loved how she wouldn't even be truthful in her diary sometimes because she was just too stubborn to admit some things to herself! I also loved the old-fashioned romance without any of the gratuitous details that many modern authors seem to need to employ.

I think we have this romanticized notion of the Old West due to books like Shane and movies like the  John Wayne canon. Then there is this other side of how life probably truly was (like "The Giant Joshua"). This book seems to fall between the two perspectives. I kept thinking, "No, really? You had to deal with this? It was this hard?" The hardships seemed exaggerated sometimes. But I didn't settle Arizona in the late 1800s, so what do I know.

This was a fun read that was hard to put down, but its only drawback is some scenes of women and children in peril, some of which are truly horrifying. So read and enjoy, but be forewarned that you may need to skim-read some pages.

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