2.5 stars. It was fine. I grabbed this from a free paperback swap and read it today while I was down with a cold. I'll read just about any book that features cake.

It's hard for me to rate this fairly even though I can believe the author/illustrator is skilled at what she does. I just didn't identify with it, so it wasn't the book for me.

Man, this was so impressive. I'm amazed by the sources and stories Ulrich found to pull from, given the difficulty of preserving and finding records/letters/diaries kept by average women. She does such a great job of helping us see what life was like for these pioneer women and how much they sacrificed and accomplished, often on their own (with husbands away on missions or spread between plural families). One thing that stood out to me was how often families lost babies and children to illness and accident. And it was really interesting to read about how women fought publicly for their right to worship (which especially included polygamy) while feeling personal pain over the practice. (Also, this was in no way Ulrich's stated thesis but reading this book makes me even more convinced that polygamy sucks. There are some heartbreaking stories in here.)

I never watched her show on Fox but I really enjoyed this memoir, especially seeing what it took for Kelly to switch careers mid-stream (from law to journalism). I came away admiring her tenacity and work ethic. She also discusses the brouhaha during the election when Trump's tweets about her incited threats of violence to her and her family. She ended up having to visit Trump Tower and play nice to make it stop. Trump is trash, y'all.

Man. This one really is kind of a downer from the get-go. Mary is blind now, Plum Creek hasn't worked out, everyone is sick and depressed, JACK DIES, you get the picture. Then they head out west to South Dakota so Pa can work for the railroads until they can lay claim to a homestead. There's stuff about horse-thieving, 13-yr-old brides, and attempted murder. As an adult, I now see that a lot of what Ma says and does isn't to be a kill-joy who doesn't want Laura to go anywhere or have any fun. It's likely that she had a lot of anxiety about her daughters' safety around the crews working the railroad and the stream of homesteaders boarding at their house every night in a pretty lawless frontier area. So she tried to keep the girls off the radar as much as possible. Thank heavens it at least ends on a cheerful note.

This was so much fun, especially listening to the audiobook!

My kids and I loved listening to the Peter Dennis audio version in the car. They thought it was silly and fun, and I thought it was just enchanting.