Customer Reviews

Kindred Spirits

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I absolutely loved this book.

The character development and their relationships with each other really is what pulls it together. It is such a well written, entertaining, and realistic yet surreal story that I couldn't help but like it. Making something like this believable is the challenge and Bigelow did a fantastic Job, I tip my hat to him. The journey was well worth the money and will be one I will eventually take of the shelf to read again.

I applaud Bigelow's ability to craft a female main character who is both intellegent and flawed. Eliza's healthy sexuality is tainted with guilt to the point of being poignantly frustrating. I found myself pulling for her even though I felt she was unconsciously complicit in her own subjugation.

If you are looking for a romantic love story, this is not the book. Even with the mystical Mormon references, Bigelow is a realist. Life is messy and strangely funny.

The characters are skillfully presented with dialogue that rings true. The imagery and details are vivid and earthy, creating an interesting juxtaposition between heavenly ideals and physical drives and functions. One example; the advice Eliza's mother gives her daughter about sex is both graphic and prudishly warped.

Whether Bigelow intended it or not, his eccentric supporting characters -Wiccans and free love advocates- will not appear to the mainstream reader to be any more bizarre in their beliefs and practices than Mormons are in theirs. The novel presents Eliza's numinous mind set as normal, even exemplary. Anyone thinking that Mormonism is just another protestant religion will be informed to the contrary.

To call "Kindred Spirits" a Mormon novel would be an accurate but incomplete description. It is a novel about a modern woman's struggle to create a family while staying loyal to an extremely demanding, outdated, and unnecessarily harsh set of beliefs and values.