The Voyage of the Narwhal

Boy, I don't know how to rate this one.

At first, I loved it. Then about a chapter into it, I realized this book is
neither history or historical fiction. I suddenly became very irritated with
it. I vowed to plug on.

I unexpectedly got quite caught up in the story (who will survive? who will
marry?) and followed it to the very end.

This author writes well. She tells a nice story.

But in the end, I didn't really care about the characters (oh, well, he
perished in the ice...)

This book reminds me of the way I felt about The Corrections. The author is
excellent at copying a paint-by-numbers picture onto another piece of paper
and painting in each part the right color. None of the numbers show. But
when you look at the picture, you know somehow that it was taken from
somewhere, that it wasn't drawn from the heart.

Does that make any sense?

I rate Voyage of the Narwhal a 7.