Review: "Rebellion" by Molly Patterson

It’s been awhile since I have come across a book that I would categorize as a “personal favorite”: a book that has its bad qualities, a book that a lot of people will find fault with and rightly so, but one that still intrigued me, fascinated me and hypnotized me to the point where I have to praise, where I liked it so much that I have to give it my highest rating. The last one I can think of is Niccolo Ammaniti’s Let the Games Begin, the Italian authors strangest book (and, to be fair, his worst), but now, I can add Molly Patterson’s massive debut novel Rebellion to that list. To put it simply, this book is a beautiful mess, but an engaging and thought-provoking one at its best, and in the hands of a writer like Patterson, it is a skilled one at that. After finishing it a few hours ago, I am still trying to piece its puzzle pieces together, trying to map out in my head what connects these four stories and what they say about one another. I have a few ideas that I will pontificate on later, but some, much like one of the characters, are seemingly lost or have slipped away from existence entirely. It is at times a frustrating book, one that requires a bit more attention than say a thriller or a mystery, but I can say, at least for me, there are great, profound rewards for the patient and adventurous reader. The book tells four stories about four different women at three different periods of time. In a prologue that takes place in 1999, we are introduced to Hazel, who, I would argue, exists at the center of the book both thematically and geographically. She is 84 years old and is being moved from her house into a nursing home by her two children Debbie and Joe, two adults who could not be more different. From there, the book travels back a century where sisters Addie and Louisa are both going on journeys away from home, with Louisa marrying Bert and becoming a farm wife and Addie traveling to China with her husband Owen to become Christian missionaries. Along with Hazel’s story, there is Juanlan, a Chinese girl who moves from the big city to her family’s small village to care for her father who just had a stroke and watch over her sister-in-law who is about to have a baby. All four women (really three, but you’ll find that out if you read it) seek out happiness in their own way, and themes recur through each story, such as ailing parents, lesbian love affairs and the consequences and limits of pursuing happiness and your desires. In structure and scope, it reminded me of C. E. Morgan’s The Sport of Kings and Philipp Meyer’s The Son, both books set over decades and centuries about the brutality of rural life and what happens when you move toward a single-minded goal. This book fights snuggly in between those two. Everything is not wrapped up tight (such as Juanlan’s story, which bare little connection to the other three), but the questions this book asks are exhausting and rich, a good combination for what makes a great book.

Rating: 5/5