Review: The Ash Family by Molly Dektar

I gobbled this book up in about 2 days. The Ash Family showed up in my instagram account one day as a must-read by one of the accounts that I follow. After reading the intro, seeing a few references to NC and ASHeville, and hearing that the main character decides to leave mainstream life and join a "family," on a farm, I was all in.

It didn't take me long to fall in love with the descriptive words that Molly strings together. I could practically hear the crickets and goats while I was growing closer to Berie. I found myself underlining many passages, sentences, and words that created images for me that I thought I'd like to revisit someday. Maybe I'm the only one that has thought about what it would be like to live away from the rest of the world with my family, self-sustained and shut-off from the shackles of day to day life. Berie doesn't have it easy on the farm with her new family, and she quickly learns that she's faced with choices that have an impact on many of the things she has left behind. 

Being a NC native, I loved her references to Asheville, Duke Gardens, and the mountains. I think there's a lot more to this book than meets the eye and there's a lot of symbolism and truth that could easily be overlooked.

When I turned to the last page in this book, I was pretty sad to think that it was over. I felt I knew and had grown to relate and love Berie and didn't want the story to be over. This is Molly Dektar's first book. I selfishly hope she's in her cutesy Brooklyn apartment writing more books. And, when she does, I'll be one of the first to line up for them.

5 Stars.