The Berry Pickers

De: Amanda Peters

Narrado por: Aaliya Warbus, Jordan Waunch

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a family, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years

July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective.

Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For fans of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

©2023 Amanda Peters (P)2023 HarperCollinsPublishers

Stolen lives

4 stars for The Berry Pickers, although I was leaning towards 3.5 for most of the book. I bumped it up because of the content and the importance of it being told. This book is getting a lot of love from well known reviewers and I am not here to detract. But I did feel the character development was a bit bland. Or, maybe I just didn't connect with these characters like I wanted to. The same thing happened to me in Hello Beautiful and that book got so much love last year it did not need me one way or another! I am a huge fan of Indigenous fiction and I truly want to support books that depict the horrible things that have been done to them in this Nation. But I am also adopted and recently reunited with my birth parents and I probably expect a little too much out of stolen/found family stories. That being said, it was a good read and I do recommend it. I just can't quite give it 5 stars. There are strong themes of family betrayal, childhood trauma, anger issues, stolen identity and stolen life as well as the Indigenous themes of racism and white people taking what they want including their children! Read it.

Great story; lousy audiobook

I love audiobooks, but The Berry Pickers should have been kept in print format as its readers spoiled it completely.

Good story told too slowly

I appreciated Norma's journey to loving her mother and adjusting to her seclusion but that parallel journey of her disconnected brother was ineffective. Reintegration into a lost family is VERY TRAUMATIC and difficult. I wanted more depth and character

Interesting theme

The story was intriguing but somewhat predictable. Unfortunately the narration ruined it for me. I listen to audible books excessively and there are some outstanding voices that could have changed my overall opinion of this book. Because of the narration, I couldn’t fall in love with either Joe or Norma.

Love

Family is always bound from birth to death even when separated by someone else’s choice.

loved it

this story was so well written, The tempo was perfect. it was well researched. wonderful read or listen.

The Incredibly Flawed Characters

Many of the main characters were unlikeable. Norma/Ruthie was self absorbed and weak. Her “adoptive” parents were dreadful people. Who steals a child and maintains a lie? Their over protective attitude left Norma/Ruthie anxious and unable to deal with life’s challenges. She was kidnapped at age four but had very hazy memories of life before the kidnapping. If she had been two or three it would have been more believable. I have very distinct memories at age three and four. It didn’t seem very realistic.

Alice her aunt’s Lesbian lover was wise and kind but she too helped maintain the lie. Joe her brother was also very flawed. He was a drunk and violent. Ben was a good son and brother. May was a devoted sister and the biological parents were also people of ethics and character.

It was a compelling story and I stuck it out to the end. But it’s hard when you don’t like the protagonist. I wanted to reach in and shake Norma/Ruthie and tell her to grow up.

This book has so many great reviews I bought it although it’s not a genre I usually pick. I didn’t think it was all that good.

The narrator was excellent.

easy listen. relatable as an indigenous person

as an indigenous person I loved this book. it was relatable in the family dynamics.

The story

I think the narrations suffered a bit as they didn’t always sound authentic. Sometimes a bit stilted. It’s a great story though!

The plot

Enjoyed all. Intriguing characters (especially Ruthie/Norma) that made it difficult to quit listening. Thank you.